Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices 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 the competitor, even trailing behind.”
