Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation 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 heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
