Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
