Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to 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 Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
