The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
