The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope 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 accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
