The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement 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 ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
