Blue Origin defers new Glenn rocket launch

Jeffrey Bezos' space company Blue Origin has again put off launching its New Glenn rocket after bad weather conditions prevented it from taking off on Sunday. The launch window closed when rain and a ground system issue were followed by cumulus cloud cover, leaving only the option of pushing back the planned second mission.

The intensifying competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX is further complicated as the Federal Aviation Administration has limited commercial rocket liftoffs during the US government shutdown. The New Glenn rocket was scheduled to launch amid all this chaos and take NASA's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars for climate studies, a precursor to human exploration. The launch will also test whether the company can achieve booster recovery.

The first flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn in January was considered successful despite the payload achieving orbit and successfully performing tests. However, the reusable first-stage booster did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic and instead was lost during descent. With this failure, Blue Origin is looking to try again with their second effort for booster recovery.

Both Bezos and Musk's companies have been locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated as NASA opened up bids for its planned Moon mission with complaints emerging that SpaceX was behind. As such, the stakes are high for how well Blue Origin will do when they eventually launch. How this plays out is an indicator of their progress in the space industry.

In summary, bad weather conditions have again put off the launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, adding to the intensifying competition with SpaceX and complicating the situation further with limited FAA commercial liftoffs during the government shutdown. The stakes are high as the launch will test whether Blue Origin can achieve booster recovery for its reusable first-stage rocket system, something that would be a technical breakthrough if successful.

Edward Lance Arellano Lorilla

CEO / Co-Founder

Enjoy the little things in life. For one day, you may look back and realize they were the big things. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.