Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
