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The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Causes

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from Monday.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.

The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed 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 accomplishment.

Industry Competition

Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.

Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”