🔗 Share this article

Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.

The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.

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

Industry Competition

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”

“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”