Blue Origin's Second Mission Postponed Because of Poor Weather Conditions
Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
