The uncrewed New Glenn rocket took off at 2:03 a.m. EST from Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Blue Origin said.
Blue Origin's New Glenn finally roared into orbit in the early hours of Thursday, with SpaceX's Starship rocket set to launch hours later.
If New Glenn lifts off on Monday as planned, the Amazon founder’s rocket company will be on track to give Elon Musk’s SpaceX some genuine competition.
Tesla CEO and Amazon founder vie for dominance of satellite launch market and could influence Nasa plans to return to Moon
Blue Origin scored a major win with its New Glenn rocket launch, but SpaceX still leads the space industry with a Falcon fleet and upcoming Starship.
Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world, successfully blasted off a 320-foot-tall rocket ship made by his Blue Origin company from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the early hours of the morning. It made the company the first to successfully reach orbit on its first launch of an orbital-class rocket.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to X on Thursday night to explain what his company believes may have caused part of the Starship rocket to experience a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."
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SpaceX CEO Musk has described the explosion of the company's Starship spacecraft during its seventh flight test Thursday as "barely a bump in the road," underlining the momentum behind the commercial space giant.
The spacecraft was supposed to soar across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to previous test flights. SpaceX had packed it with 10 dummy satellites for practice at