Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, 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.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
