The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to 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 Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch 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 successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
