The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
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 descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
