The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early 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 human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
