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Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.

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, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.

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 experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.

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

Space Race

Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.

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

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