The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study 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 its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
