The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
