The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
