The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket 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 eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
