🔗 Share this article

The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Causes

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule 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 amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.

The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.

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

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.

Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.

Industry Competition

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.

Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”