The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay 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 ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, 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 crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
