Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough 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 experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
