Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, 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 serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
