The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
