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The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry 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 amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Landing Attempts

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

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.

More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”