The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
