Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
