The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX 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 in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
