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Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.

Mission Postponement Causes

Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

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

Rescheduled Attempt

To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.

Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

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

But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.

Recovery Efforts

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

Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.

Space Race

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

The current administration has seen the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.

More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”

“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”