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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.

Rescheduled Attempt

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 mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.

The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if successful.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

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

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

Industry Competition

The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged 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.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.

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

“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”