Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency 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 “give us more choices 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 not in the lead.”
