The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement 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 closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, 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 whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
