Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged 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 lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
