The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
