The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
