The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
