Blue Origin, the rocket company Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos founded, notched one of the most substantial successes in its history on Thursday: sending a rocket to orbit.

For this uncrewed launch, New Glenn will house the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a payload consisting of a communications array, a power system, and a flight computer. This will let Blue Origin test its Blue Ring spacecraft, which will eventually support missions with refueling, hosting, data relay, and cloud computing capabilities.

Blue Origin will try, try again to launch its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket to orbit for the first time — if the Florida weather cooperates.

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.

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.

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’s New Glenn rocket safely achieved orbit during its inaugural NG-1 mission, marking a significant milestone for the company and the commercial space industry.

Blue Origin scrubbed the planned 29th launch of its New Shepard suborbital rocket today (Jan. 28) due to uncooperative weather and a vehicle issue.