The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of 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 time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
