The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition 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 said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
