The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur 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.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
