Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX 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 starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its progress 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 liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
