Blue Origin's heavy launch vehicle New Glenn successfully reached orbit on its maiden flight. Founder Jeff Bezos moves one step closer to challenging Elon Musk's SpaceX in the fiercely contested satellite launch market.

On Thursday morning at 2:03 a.m. local time, the 98-meter high rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, five years later than originally planned. Shortly after launch, the booster stage separated, and after 13 minutes New Glenn reached orbit, accompanied by applause in the Blue Origin control center. The launch had to be postponed multiple times. Most recently, bad weather, an icy component, and a ship in the safety zone prevented the launch. Despite these obstacles, New Glenn finally lifted off, accompanied by an iconic trail of smoke shimmering in the company's colors of blue.

The return of the booster, which was supposed to demonstrate the reusability of the rocket, however, failed. "Our main goal was to safely reach orbit. Everything else is a bonus," said Ariane Cornell, Head of In-Space Systems at Blue Origin. The rocket, named after US astronaut John Glenn, has a payload capacity of 45 tons for low Earth orbit. Although this is significantly less than SpaceX's Starship's 150 tons, New Glenn impresses with one of the largest payload fairings in the industry: 22 meters high and 7 meters in diameter. It is powered by seven BE-4 engines running on liquefied natural gas, generating over 3.8 million pounds of thrust together.

The rocket is also set to launch satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper, which will compete with SpaceX's Starlink, as well as for the lunar lander Blue Moon from Blue Origin. Customers also include NASA, AST SpaceMobile, and various telecommunications providers. Currently, SpaceX dominates the market with its Falcon rockets, completing over half of the global 259 orbital launches in 2024. Many industry experts believe that SpaceX will significantly reduce launch costs with its Starship, whose seventh test flight is imminent. Although Blue Origin has not announced an exact number of planned missions for New Glenn, several rockets are in production. The next step is a series of test flights before the rocket is commercially operational.