The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by 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 intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine 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 booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires 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 lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
