The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
