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The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Causes

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

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

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft 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 key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Recovery Efforts

In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.

Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.

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

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”