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The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.

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

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.

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

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