The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
