Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
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 first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
