Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission 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 accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be 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 the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts 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 greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
