Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport 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 human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
