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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.

The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.

Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

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

Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”

“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.”