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Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in recent months.

New Launch Window

To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.

Launch Goals

When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft 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 key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

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

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

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.

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

Space Race

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission 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 orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”