The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule 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 relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with 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 tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push 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 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.”
