Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced on Sunday to postpone the anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket due to unfavourable weather conditions in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Rain and a ground system issue caused delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers with no choice but to push back the rocket's planned second mission. Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
In coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, Blue Origin said late Sunday that it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within the window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard Time.
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot (98-metre) New Glenn rocket has the task of sending Nasa's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Red Planet's climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration. The launch will also serve as a key test of whether Blue Origin can achieve booster recovery, a technical breakthrough for the company.
New Glenn's inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit, but its first-stage booster did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic and was lost during descent. In its second effort, Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage; only SpaceX has managed that feat.
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated as Nasa opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind. Donald Trump's second term has seen the administration pile pressure on Nasa to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
