The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday 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 EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
