Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing 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 limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
