Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
