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Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study 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 technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

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

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Landing Attempts

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

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Industry Competition

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.

Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”