The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
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 meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against 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 space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
