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The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.

Mission Postponement Causes

Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting 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 New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.

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

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Recovery Efforts

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

Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.

Industry Competition

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX 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 the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”

“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”