Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, 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 key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
