The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition 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 stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
