Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed 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 the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
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 said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
