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Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Causes

Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.

Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.

New Launch Window

To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.

Launch Goals

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Previous Flight

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost 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 achieved that feat.

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.

The current administration has seen the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

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

“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”