The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
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 long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, 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 success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms 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, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface 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 orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
