The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past 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 prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
