The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
Eva de Vries is a passionate book lover and local writer from Eindhoven.
