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Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Competition between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.

Earlier Mission

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.

But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

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

“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”