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

Mission Postponement Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.

New Launch Window

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

After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its touchdown 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 first stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.

Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”

“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”