Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform 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 achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
