Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
