Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked 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 lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
