CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Blue Origin's giant New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida early Thursday morning on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth's orbit for Jeff Bezos' space company as it aims to rival SpaceX in the satellite launch business.
Thirty stories tall with a reusable first stage, New Glenn launched around 2 a.m. ET (0700 GMT) from Blue Origin's launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, its seven engines thundering for miles under cloudy skies on its second liftoff attempt this week.
Hundreds of employees at the company's Kent, Washington headquarters and its Cape Canaveral, Florida rocket factory roared in applause as Blue Origin VP Ariane Cornell announced the rocket's second stage made it to orbit, achieving a long-awaited milestone.
"We hit our key, critical, number-one objective, we got to orbit safely," Cornell said on a company live stream. "And y'all we did it on our first go."
The rocket's reusable first stage booster was due to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from its second stage, but failed to make that landing, Cornell confirmed. Telemetry from the booster blacked out minutes after liftoff.
"We did in fact lose the booster," Cornell said.
The culmination of a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar development journey, the mission marks Blue Origin's first trek to Earth's orbit in the 25 years since Bezos founded the company.
Bezos told Reuters on Sunday, before Blue Origin's first launch attempt, that he was most nervous about landing the booster. . .
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