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’s Blue Origin joined the billionaire’s space race in earnest when its New Glenn rocket roared from a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in the early morning hours of Jan. 16. The second stage with the Blue Ring payload successfully reached orbit. However, an attempt to land the first stage on a drone ship failed.

Going forward, SpaceX is likely to offer its gigantic Starship rocket as a competitor to New Glenn, and here, the advantage shifts back to SpaceX. Bigger than New Glenn (120 meters tall versus 98) and with a wider faring to encapsulate cargo (9 meters versus 7), SpaceX's Starship will boast a massive payload advantage over Blue Origin's new rocket.

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.

The successful flight to orbit of the Amazon founder’s powerful rocket suggests it could grow into a credible competitor with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Blue Origin officials hope to send their heavy-lift New Glenn rocket on its unmanned maiden voyage into space after 1 a.m. EST, with the mission's goal being to reach orbit before returning to Earth.

Blue Origin is key to Amazon's ability to compete with SpaceX Starlink. Jeff Bezos has finally done it. He's finally reached space with an honest-to-goodness orbital-class rocket. Ten years ago, Bezos ignited a feud with SpaceX founder Elon Musk when his Blue Origin rocket company launched a suborbital New Shepard rocket to the edge of space and then landed it back on Earth.

SpaceX launched a new round of Starlink satellites into lower Earth orbit on its 11th launch of 2025, setting it on pace to break another one-year launch record.

The New Glenn makes it safely into orbit for the inaugural test flight of a rocket that could rival those in Elon Musk's SpaceX fleet.

Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, launched its massive New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time early Thursday, marking a new step in the commercial space race.

After abruptly calling off its first launch attempt in the early hours of Monday morning, Blue Origin notched a historic success with its first orbital rocket.

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit early Thursday, in a critical milestone that comes some 25 years after the billionaire founded the company with the goal of reducing the cost of access to space.