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Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Previous Flight

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

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

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Industry Competition

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government 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 liftoff.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”