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The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

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

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

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

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.

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

Earlier Mission

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

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.

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

Industry Competition

Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

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 said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”