The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms 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 lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition 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 stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
