Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch 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 relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
