Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule 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 restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, 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 booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
