The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk 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.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
