The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine 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 its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, 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 reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting 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 Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
