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The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

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

Landing Attempts

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

Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

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

“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”