Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires 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, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts 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.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
