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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.

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

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies 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 push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”