Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot 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 act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency 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 “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”