The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting 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 another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, 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 try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
