The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company 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 successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition 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 involved the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
