The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, 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 land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
