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The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.

New Launch Window

To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.

The mission will also serve as a key test 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 success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed tests.

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

Landing Attempts

In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.

Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Industry Competition

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline 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 greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”