Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past 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 major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
