Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation 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 push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline 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.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
