After Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin nailed its first-ever orbital flight, Elon Musk's SpaceX is seizing back the spotlight on Thursday with the latest launch of Starship, the gargantuan next-generation rocket that could one day ferry humans to Mars.

Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world, successfully blasted off a 320-foot-tall rocket ship made by his Blue Origin company from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the early hours of the morning. It made the company the first to successfully reach orbit on its first launch of an orbital-class rocket.

Blue Origin's New Glenn finally roared into orbit in the early hours of Thursday, with SpaceX's Starship rocket set to launch hours later.

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

Elon Musk reposted a photo taken of him and Jeff Bezos at dinner together over twenty years ago. "Wow, a lot has happened in 21 years!" he wrote while reacting to the picture.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp told CNBC that he only had one question for Jeff Bezos when he interviewed ... as the U.S. launch market remains dominated by SpaceX, followed by United Launch Alliance ...

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.

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.

The spacecraft was supposed to soar across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to previous test flights. SpaceX had packed it with 10 dummy satellites for practice at

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight Thursday, sending up a prototype satellite to orbit thousands of miles above Earth.