Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
