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The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.

Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.

Industry Competition

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, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

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

“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”