The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
