The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope 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 prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
