The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to accelerate 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,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
