The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
