Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
