Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
