Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from 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 midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
