Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, 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 its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
