The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
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 first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
