The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather 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 closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
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 planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
