Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch 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 accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
