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Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.

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

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.

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

Industry Competition

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

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.

Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”