Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
