Blue Origin rocket setbacks jeopardize upcoming Mars mission
- One rocket section collapsed, another exploded in testing
- Blue Origin is scrambling to make a Mars launch window
- New Glenn rocket is already four years overdue
ANKARA, TURKIYE – FEBRUARY 27: In this photo illustration, logo of NASA is displayed on mobile phone screen in front of Blue Origin icon on February 27, 2023. (Photo by Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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(NewsNation) — Two recent failures at the plant assembling Blue Origin’s long-delayed New Glenn rocket could cause NASA to miss a critical window for launching a new scientific mission to Mars, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Quoting “people familiar with the situation,” the report says the upper portion of one rocket collapsed upon itself while being moved to a storage hanger, and another rocket portion failed during a stress test and exploded.
Blue Origin is trying to meet an October deadline for launching a New Glenn rocket for a NASA mission called Escapade. Its goal is to send two spacecraft to Mars, but New Glenn is four years behind schedule.
“Twin orbiters will take simultaneous observations from different locations around Mars. The observations will reveal the planet’s real-time response to space weather and how the Martian magnetosphere changes over time,” according to NASA’s Escapade website.
Earth and Mars will be closest to each other until this fall. It will be about two years before the planets are this closely aligned again. Blue Origin told Bloomberg that all flight hardware was complete, and the company owned by Jeff Bezos was now working on assembling the craft and its engines.
