The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
