The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
