The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race 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 seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
