Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back 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 ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study 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 major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
