The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
