Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
