Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing 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.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
