The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with 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 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
