Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket blasts off in challenge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX

Blue Origin’s huge New Glenn rocket has blasted off from Florida on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth’s orbit for Jeff Bezos’s space company as it aims to rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the satellite launch business.

Thirty storeys high with a reusable first stage filled with liquid oxygen and methane, New Glenn launched at about 2am ET (0700 GMT) from Blue Origin’s launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force station under cloudy skies on its second attempt this week.

The rocket’s first attempt to launch, on Monday, was cancelled because ice had accumulated on a propellant line. On Thursday the company cited no issues before launch.

Hundreds of employees had gathered for the launch at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Washington, and its Cape Canaveralrocket factory in Florida, a company livestream showed.

Members of the public on Florida’s east coast cheered from parks and campsites several miles from the launchpad upon liftoff.

The mission is the culmination of a decade-long, multibillion-dollar development journey and was to include an attempt to land New Glenn’s first stage booster on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean 10 minutes after liftoff while the rocket’s second stage continues toward orbit.

Secured inside New Glenn’s payload bay is the first prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring vehicle, a manoeuvrable spacecraft the company plans to sell to the Pentagon and commercial customers for national security and satellite servicing missions.

Getting the spacecraft to its intended orbit on an inaugural rocket launch would be a rare achievement for a space company.