The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
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 accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
