The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
