The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
