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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.

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

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

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

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

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

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

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”