Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, 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 aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform 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 first stage.
Thus far, 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 recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
