The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
