The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was considered 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 landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
