Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying 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 from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
