The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
