Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
