Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
