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The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Causes

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency'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 key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Landing Attempts

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

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

Space Race

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

The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.

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

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”