Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
