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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 because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

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

Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.

Space Race

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.

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 said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”