Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
