Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
