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Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.

Launch Delay Reasons

Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.

Competition between Blue Origin 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 the beginning of the week.

Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.

Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Previous Flight

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

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.

Landing Attempts

For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.

Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.

Industry Competition

Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.

More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”

“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”