🔗 Share this article

The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.

Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”