Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
