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Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.

Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with 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 carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, 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 represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.

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

Industry Competition

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.

Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”

“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”