Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
