Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, 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 recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during 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 late Sunday 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.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter 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 serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
