The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
