The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said on Sunday evening 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 Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing 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 land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
