Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past 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 prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
