Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft 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 its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
