Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine 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 prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against 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 orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
