Jeff Bezos' Space Firm's Second Rocket Launch Delayed Because of Poor Weather Conditions
Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
