The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough 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 reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
