The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
