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

Mission Postponement Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.

Previous Flight

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

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

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

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

Space Race

Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission 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 more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”