Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition 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 bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
