Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, carrying two satellites designed to measure space weather on Mars, is back on track for another launch attempt this week, the company said on Wednesday, after a string of delays forced by cloudy skies and a geomagnetic storm.
The latest 90-minute launch window at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida was set for Thursday, starting a few minutes before 3 p.m. (2000 GMT), according to an update posted by Jeff Bezos' space venture on its website.
The new launch time coincided with forecasts from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center showing a diminished risk to spacecraft and satellites from elevated solar activity on Thursday.
New Glenn, a two-stage, heavy-lift rocket standing 32 stories tall, was previously slated for blastoff on Sunday on a mission to deliver two Mars-bound satellites to space for NASA.
The flight would mark a major milestone for Blue Origin as its first major science mission for a paying customer, and the company's first launch of any kind since its inaugural New Glenn flight in January.
But the flight ended up scrubbed on Sunday because of heavy cloud cover. The mission was then rescheduled for Wednesday, but Blue Origin called off the launch again after a severe geomagnetic storm watch was posted.
The storm was unleashed by a surge in high-energy charged particles spewed into space earlier this week from large eruptions on the sun's surface called "coronal mass ejections."
The resulting stream of charged-particle radiation, or plasma, was measured on Earth on Wednesday at G-4, or "severe" levels, one step down from the highest stage of G-5 or "extreme," but it was expected to fade on Thursday.
Geomagnetic storms are known to disrupt radio and satellite communications. They also can increase atmospheric density, creating intense friction or drag on satellites and other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, as occurred in February 2022 when 40 Starlink satellites newly launched by SpaceX were disabled.
Elevated levels of charged particles from the sun can also more easily escape Earth's protective magnetic field and collide more vigorously with molecules in the atmosphere, heightening the extent of colorful aurora displays visible in the night skies, mostly in polar regions.
A UK startup is recovering precious and critical metals without energy-hungry smelting methods.
The vibrant green and pink displays of Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, were reported across unusually large swaths of the United States on Tuesday night as far south as Texas, Florida and Alabama, with another round of higher-latitude appearances forecast for Wednesday.
Ironically, the twin satellites of EscaPADE, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, are intended to study similar phenomena on Mars at the end of a 22-month voyage to the Red Planet.
The two spacecraft are designed to orbit Mars in tandem to analyze how streams of charged solar particles interact with Mars' magnetic field and how that interaction has caused the planet to lose much of its atmosphere.
Source:Reuters
Bd-pratidin English/ ANI
