Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek 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 Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study 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 reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
