Blue Origin has been forced to postpone the launch of its New Glenn rocket carrying NASA’s twin Mars probes, ESCAPADE, due to a combination of challenging weather conditions and a new federal restriction on commercial space launches. The planned liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida was scrubbed just minutes before it was scheduled to begin on Sunday, November 9th.
Blue Origin representatives cited “cumulus cloud rule” violations as the primary reason for the delay. Despite working with backup launch windows on Monday and Tuesday (November 10th and 11th), the company faces an added hurdle: a temporary halt on daytime commercial launches imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to the ongoing government shutdown. This means that even if weather cooperates, Blue Origin must secure an exception from the FAA before proceeding.
“We are working really closely with both our partners at the FAA and with the NASA team,” explained Laura Maginnis, Blue Origin’s Vice President for New Glenn mission management, emphasizing their commitment to safety while also striving to meet mission objectives. “We absolutely have the 9th and 10th of November secured on the SLD 45 range,” she assured the public, referring to Space Launch Delta 45 overseeing launches from Florida’s Eastern Range.
The launch delay compounds existing difficulties for NASA’s Mars exploration program. The ESCAPADE mission (short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) represents the agency’s first foray to Mars in five years and has already endured setbacks, pushing its original target date back to October 2024. These twin orbiters, constructed by Rocket Lab at a cost of less than $80 million, are designed to unravel how solar wind and space weather have stripped Mars of much of its atmosphere over time, leaving the planet barren and arid.
Beyond ESCAPADE, Blue Origin’s NG-2 mission carries additional scientific weight: a telemetry communications experiment for ViaSat as part of NASA’s Communications Services Project. This launch also marks New Glenn’s second flight after its inaugural test in January 2023, during which the rocket successfully reached orbit but failed to land its first stage on a designated barge. Blue Origin hopes this attempt will be more successful, paving the way for future reusability and solidifying New Glenn as their primary vehicle for commercial satellite launches, heavy-lift missions, and eventually crewed and uncrewed flights to the moon aboard their Blue Moon lander.
This latest delay underscores how intricate international collaborations in space exploration can be, susceptible to a multitude of unforeseen challenges ranging from weather patterns to political events on Earth.
