Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
