Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting 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, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
