The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to reschedule 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 ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
