Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
