Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort 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 represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
