The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”