The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study 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 reusable rocket landing, 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 reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
