The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
