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

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year 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 instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.

Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Space Race

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

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on 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 more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”