The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency 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 NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
