Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”