The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek 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 two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
