The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a success, 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 platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land 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 private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition 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 said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
