The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
