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The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Industry Competition

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

The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.

More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”