Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
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 reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
