The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past 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 company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
