The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, 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.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
