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Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.

Launch Delay Causes

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

Rivalry 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 government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.

After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.

Mission Objectives

Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.

The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.

Earlier Mission

The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.

But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.

Landing Attempts

In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the first stage.

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

Space Race

The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.

Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.

More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”

“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”