The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers 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 relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm 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 completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
