Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
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, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
