Blue Origin's Second Rocket Launch Delayed Due to Poor Weather Conditions
The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
