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The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay 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 technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.

New Launch Window

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

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.

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

Industry Competition

Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.

More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”