The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule 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 relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress 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.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
