🔗 Share this article

Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Causes

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.

The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

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

But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

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

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

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

More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”