The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
