The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up 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 the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company 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 main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission 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 locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
