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The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

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

The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Landing Attempts

For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.

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

Space Race

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

The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with China.

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

“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”