The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX 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 soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
