🔗 Share this article

The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.

New Launch Window

To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.

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

Space Race

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

Increased competition 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 said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”