Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
