The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
