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The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Causes

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.

Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”