The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
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 sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent 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 first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
