Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
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 eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove 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 payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
