The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
