Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition 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 US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, 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
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with 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 orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
