The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
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 managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
