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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.

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 the return phase.

Landing Attempts

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

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

Industry Competition

Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”

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