Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, 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 prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
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
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
