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Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.

New Launch Window

To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.

The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”