The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
