Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside 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
Upon successful liftoff, 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 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 whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons 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 planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
