The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
