The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test 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 the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
