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The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from Monday.

Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.

Earlier Mission

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

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Recovery Efforts

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

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

Industry Competition

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

The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.

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

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