Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
