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Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.

The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Landing Attempts

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

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against China.

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

“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”