Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
