Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with 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 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
