The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers 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 ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry 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 sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining 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 lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
