Weather Delay Postpones Historic Mars Mission and Jeff Bezos’ New Glenn Rocket Debut

This was supposed to be a historical moment for Blue Origin. The New Glenn rocket, which is 322 feet, is designed to be competitive with the Falcon family of SpaceX, as well as to be a breakthrough in commercial spaceflight. 

This mission was intended to carry NASA’s Escapade spacecraft, an acronym used to denote Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, to explore the Martian atmosphere on a long trip.

The heavy cloud cover, however, forced the postponement of liftoff. Blue Origin explained that rockets are usually evaded in densely covered or ionised cloud areas, as lightning may be triggered during the launch. 

The organisation then claimed that it was going to review weather predictions and seek a second launch target in a timely fashion.

Next Attempt at Launch and FAA Restriction

The next launch opportunity of Blue Origin can be on Monday afternoon, at 2:40-4:08 p.m. Eastern Time. 

But the weather forecasts are in a state of uncertainty, and the weather is expected to be similar to the one that was encountered on Sunday. 

The Federal Aviation Authority has recently placed a ban on the commercial launches of rockets between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. ET as a way of curbing the air traffic congestion amid the Federal shutdown currently being experienced. 

Blue Origin has underlined its continued liaisons with the FAA and NASA to ensure that everything is above board in all the relevant airspace regulations.

Blasting Rocket Reuse and Landing

Together with the Martian exploration project, Blue Origin will perform another milestone test, the landing and recovery of the first-stage booster of New Glenn on a maritime platform called Jacklyn. 

Effective booster recovery is one of the pillars of the mission of Blue Origin to make rockets reusable and thus reduce the mission costs.

The first launch of the New Glenn in January was successful, as it put a test satellite, the Blue Origin Pathfinder, into orbit. 

However, the booster could not be recovered, with its propulsion system failing to restart. During the intervening months, the engineering team at Blue Origin has been busy with a significant initiative of refining the systems and making changes to the hardware that would increase the likelihood of recovery success.

The Vice President of the Mission Management, Laura Maginnis, admitted that, whereas the booster recovery is one of the main objectives, the primary purpose of the mission is the successful launch of the NASA spacecraft without any flaws. 

In case we miss the booster, that is okay, we have a few more vehicles that are in production, she said.

NASA: Escapade Mission: A Journey to Mars

New Glenn will launch the Escapade spacecraft into deep space upon successful launch. The two orbiters will first form a phasing orbit, followed by Mars in the next year, when the planets come in line with each other. 

It is a scientific project by the University of California, Berkeley, and NASA that will see the mission land on Mars in 2027. The orbiters will look into the erosion of the atmospheres of Mars throughout the course of the billions of years due to the solar wind and radiation that have changed the once temperate and hydrous planet to its current arid and cold condition. 

Information gathered shall be utilised in the upcoming human activities, where strategies of survival in the rough environment of Mars will be made. Principal Investigator Robert Lillis claimed that the mission would produce the space-weather measurements needed to predict solar storms, which may pose a threat to astronauts.

This mission, though postponed by weather, is a significant milestone for both Blue Origin and NASA, not only in our understanding of Mars but also in proving that reusable launch vehicles can be used to explore deep space.