The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope 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.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
