🔗 Share this article Blue Origin's Latest Mission Delayed Because of Poor Atmospheric Situation The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral. Mission Postponement Reasons Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight. Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months. New Launch Window To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday. Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST. Mission Objectives When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration. Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful. Earlier Mission New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests. But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase. Landing Attempts For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage. Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment. Industry Competition Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind. The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China. Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.” “More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”