The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal 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 company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
