Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle 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 human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission 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.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
