The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be 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 the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
