The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race 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 government push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
