Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot 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 Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history 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 reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
