Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday 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 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 whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
