Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
