The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
