The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against 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,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
