Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine 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 accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
