The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
