The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers 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 amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past 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 prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface 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 said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
