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The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch 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 recent months.

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Space Race

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was lagging behind.

The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.

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.”