Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot 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 prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
