Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
