Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline 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 greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
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