Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company hailed “a new era” in commercial spaceflight on Thursday after its giant New Glenn rocket made a long-awaited successful maiden launch from Florida.
The spectacular early morning liftoff from Cape Canaveral space force station was a milestone moment for Bezos’s rivalry with fellow billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has stolen a march in Nasa’s reliance on private industry for satellite and crewed launches in lower Earth orbit.
