Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
