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.

SpaceX has carried out the seventh test flight of its Starship mega-rocket from Texas. Although it managed to capture the booster for the second time, communication with the spacecraft was lost eight minutes after liftoff.

After Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin nailed its first-ever orbital flight, Elon Musk's SpaceX is seizing back the spotlight on Thursday with the latest launch of Starship, the gargantuan next-generation rocket that could one day ferry humans to Mars.

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.

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.

Shrugging off bad weather, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched its powerful New Glenn rocket on its maiden flight early Thursday, lighting up a cloudy overnight sky as it climbed away from Cape Canaveral in a high-stakes bid to compete with Elon Musk's industry-leading SpaceX.

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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is set for an inaugural launch of its giant New Glenn rocket on Sunday, a long-awaited first leap to Earth orbit that sets up one of the biggest challenges yet to industry dominance enjoyed by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

After more than a decade of development, hype and pent-up demand, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace venture Blue Origin will at long last attempt to put a rocket into orbit. New Glenn, originally intended to

The scheduled Sunday launch could mark a new phase in competition in the commercial space market, and pave the way for the deployment of Amazon's Kuiper satellite network.

Blue Origin expects the New Glenn to provide a viable alternative to SpaceX's market-dominating Falcon family of rockets.