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The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.

New Launch Window

To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.

The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.

Previous Flight

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed 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 ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.

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

Space Race

Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.

More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”