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The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.

Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.

More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”