Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
