The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced 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.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions 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.”
