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.

Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company Blue Origin on Thursday launched its new mega-rocket, called New Glenn, into orbit for the first time. The rocket lifted

The New Glenn rocket was due to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida for the first time in the early hours of Monday morning but the launch was cancelled after several delays

SpaceX launched Starship on Thursday for a seventh test flight, after weather concerns pushed back an experiment that will feature the spacecraft’s first payload deployment test, and while it successfully caught the Super Heavy Booster, Starship lost connection and “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

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Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, waved off an attempt to launch its first orbital rocket. Blue Origin said engineers worked to troubleshoot an issue with the rocket but could not resolve the problem in time.

Named after the first American to orbit Earth, the New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida, soaring from the same pad used to launch NASA’s Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft a half-century ago.

Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' space company, launched its large rocket for the first time early Thursday.

The scheduled Sunday launch could mark a new phase in competition in the commercial space market, and pave the way for the deployment of Amazon's Kuiper satellite network.

"Elon has been very clear that he's doing this for the public interest and not for his personal gain," Bezos said in a new interview.

Elon Musk's SpaceX's Starship test flight ended in failure as the spacecraft exploded and broke apart, following a suspected fuel leak in the engine firewall.