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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Rivalry 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 amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.

Recovery Efforts

For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.

Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.

Space Race

Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

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

“More launches means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”