The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm 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 private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
