The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’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 crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
