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The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

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

Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company 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 commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

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

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Landing Attempts

For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.

Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that feat.

Space Race

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

The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

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

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