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Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.

Rescheduled Attempt

To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday 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.

Mission Objectives

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

The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.

Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Space Race

Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.

More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”