The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
