Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study 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 its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
