The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history 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 technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
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.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
