Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement 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 completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
