Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
