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The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

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

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

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

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.

Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Space Race

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

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.

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

“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”