The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company 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 the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter 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 sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to accelerate its progress 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 liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
