Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement 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 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 instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
