The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot 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 eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
