🔗 Share this article

Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

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

After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also serve as a crucial trial 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 considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.

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

Space Race

Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.

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

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