Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
