The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
