Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry 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.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost 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.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
