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 rocket took off at 2:03 a.m. and reached orbit 13 minutes later, marking Blue Origin's first successful flight.

The successful flight to orbit of the Amazon founder’s powerful rocket suggests it could grow into a credible competitor with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Jeff Bezos’s New Glenn rocket launch cancelled after hours of delays - The Amazon boss is anticipating Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Station

Bezos’ space company Blue Origin started at about the same time as Musk’s SpaceX but since then Musk’s firm has launched more than 400 of its Falcon 9 rockets into orbit and is testing out its giant Starship rocket which it hopes will send astronauts to the Moon and one day possibly on to Mars.

Blue Origin successfully launched the rocket after an attempt earlier in the week was scrubbed. The flight is a crucial test of the company’s ability to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

New Glenn is capable of carrying 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO). SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which also features reusable first stage boosters, can lift around 70 tons (64 metric tons) to LEO.

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

Blue Origin ( BORGN ), the space technology company owned by Amazon ( AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, on Monday called off the inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket, after multiple delays, due to some last-minute anomalies.

The businesswoman shared a celebratory post after Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched ... land the reusable first stage on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, but Blue Origin confirmed that although ...

in honour of Jeff Bezos’s mother, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 km) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Though SpaceX has long made such landings a near-routine spectacle, this will be Blue ...