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Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

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

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.

The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

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

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Industry Competition

The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface 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 orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”