The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA 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 greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
