While Jeff Bezos has spent $14 billion to achieve his first space launch, his billionaire rival has built a thriving business, mostly with other people’s money.

The Amazon founder’s space company marked a major milestone Thursday with the first test flight of its New Glenn 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.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on Monday called off its inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket after a number of last-minute issues – hurting the space firm in its race to compete with Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX. The 320-foot rocket was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 1 a.m. ET before the launch was aborted.

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.

After more than a decade of development, hype and pent-up demand, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace venture Blue Origin will at long last attempt to put a rocket into orbit. New Glenn, originally intended to

Tesla CEO and Amazon founder vie for dominance of satellite launch market and could influence Nasa plans to return to Moon

It took a while, but investors and space enthusiasts are finally getting the drama they have been looking for: David versus Goliath, but in space. SpaceX, owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is set to test its huge Starship launch vehicle on Thursday afternoon.