The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost 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 Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
