The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds 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 traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry 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 bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
