The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, 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 its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved 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 the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
