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The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition 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 US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test 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 considered a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.

Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

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

“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”