The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said 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.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
