Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission 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 successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition 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 said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
