The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
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 first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
