KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company, launched its large rocket for the first time early Thursday.
- After several postponed launches, the 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:03 a.m. ET and reached orbit.
- Billionaire rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX has more than 400 total launches, according to its website.
Blue Origin, Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos’ space company, launched its large rocket for the first time early Thursday.
After several postponed launches, the 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:03 ET a.m. and reached orbit. However, Blue Origin “lost the booster during descent” toward a platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
“The vehicle underpins our efforts to establish sustained human presence on the Moon, harness in-space resources, provide multi-mission, multi-orbit mobility through Blue Ring, and establish destinations in low Earth orbit,” Blue Origin said.
By contrast, rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX has more than 400 total launches, according to its website.
The billionaires are competing to dominate the commercial space race.
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