Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
