Blue Origin, owned 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.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall 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.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
