Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

It's emotional watching a rocket blast off - years of hard work and aspirations are poured into getting these huge machines off a launch pad and into orbit.

And no matter your opinion on the merits of spending billions of dollars on space exploration, it is a spectacular feat of engineering.

Blue Origin will be delighted to have achieved its core goal of sending New Glenn into orbit for the first time.

It failed to land its booster onto the landing platform, but that was a "nice to have" rather than essential part of this mission.

It throws down a challenge to Jeff Bezos's rival Elon Musk as the two men fight for dominance in space.

Both are competing over who has the biggest and most powerful rocket. Bezos is still behind in the race, but this is a big step forward for him.

"We're just getting started," said the Blue Origin spokeswoman as she signed off the live feed.

We're going to close our live coverage now, but you can read more on this story here.

Why has Blue Origin taken much longer to get here than SpaceX?published at 07:43 Greenwich Mean Time 16 January

07:43 GMT 16 January

Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent

SpaceX’s approach to innovation has been quite different to Nasa’s or any private sector firm.

The norm had been to develop carefully and minimise the risks of a failure when building systems. SpaceX on the other hand have innovated quickly, failed quickly and learned quickly.

Explosions were the norm when developing its Falcon and Starship rocket systems, but each test flight has gone better than the previous one and the pace with which it has been developing new lower cost ways of getting to space, culminating in the catching of Starship’s booster on the launchpad, has been blistering.

Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 to focus more on Blue Origin. Bezos’ influence and his appointment of a new head of Blue Origin seems to have shifted the firm’s culture and speeded up the development of New Glenn.

Elon Musk of SpaceX, who Jeff Bezos is hoping to rival, has just congratulated Blue Origin on X, another company he owns.

"Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt! @JeffBezos," Musk writes.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company has now successfully launched a rocket into orbit for the first time.

"We lost the booster," says the Blue Origin spokesperson on its live feed.

The company wanted to land the booster that propelled New Glenn into space on a landing platform in the ocean, but they have just confirmed that this part of the mission failed.

Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

New Glenn's booster - with the unusual name So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance - is preparing for landing.

It has separated from the rocket and should now descend back to Earth.

The plan is for it to land on a platform called Jacklyn, several hundred miles away from the rocket launch pad in Cape Canaveral.

The company want to retrieve the booster so it can be used again.

Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

In the live feed of this spectacular rocket launch, we can hear the cheers and screams of Blue Origin employees and crowds that gathered to see this launch.

They're delighted - New Glenn's maiden flight has gone very smoothly.

The first stage of the rocket has just separated - that is part of the machine shed to make the rocket lighter as it climbs into orbit.

But the next test is can Blue Origin land the booster on a landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean - they want this to be reusable, but it's no mean feat to return it to a small barge in the ocean.

New Glenn has passed the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space, Blue Origin says.

Separation is confirmed and the rocket's launch is in stage two.

Blue Origin has just posted on X to say: "New Glenn is beginning its first ever ascent toward the stars.

"New Glenn has reached maximum dynamic pressure, or Max-Q."

Image source, Blue Origin

New Glenn has successfully launched - the rocket is speeding into space at a speed of five miles per second.

It's a huge step forward for Jeff Bezos and his company that have spent years getting to the point of sending a rocket into orbit.

Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

Blue Origin have made the "Go, No Go" call - when engineers make the final decision about whether to send the rocket up into orbit, after making final checks.

The decision is Go.

We're counting down the final five minutes to launch - and you can follow all the action live at the top of the page.

The countdown clock in Cape Canaveral has hit five minutes, meaning the New Glenn's second launch attempt is imminent.

Watch live at the top of this page to see the rocket blast off in real time.

Image source, Reuters

For most, Jeff Bezos is best known for being the founder of the successful e-commerce company Amazon.

In under three decades, the billionaire successfully transformed the once “famously unprofitable” business to one of a handful in the world to be valued at over $2 trillion.

During that time, however, Bezos has also shown an interest in the world beyond business.

Bezos has joined a number of other tech entrepreneurs to enter what has been dubbed as the billionaire space race.

Bezos previously said his aims were to “build a road to space so our kids and their kids can build the future.”

“We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth,” he added.

Blue Origin, the aerospace technology company founded by Bezos, says it was founded “with a vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth.”

However, there are plenty of critics of Bezos’ endeavour, with some describing the billionaire space race as a ‘waste of money’ that would be better spent on the climate crisis.

Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

Rocket launches are by nature unpredictable. This is the third time this week I’ve been up in the very early hours to see if Blue Origin’s rocket will blast off.

The chances are looking good this morning, but as we've just posted, the latest launch time has been delayed again until just after 02:00 local time (07:00GMT).

Blue Origin say a boat strayed into the area close to where the rocket should launch in Cape Canaveral in Florida.

On Monday, we got very close to launch but ice clogged a line that carries gas away from the rocket. Engineers needed to fix that problem so the launch was delayed.

This is all part and parcel of launching a rocket, particularly for the first time. SpaceX's rockets also faced issues, including blowing up in the early days.

I'm watching the clock in the corner of Blue Origin's live feed very closely. Will we all be back here again tomorrow?

If you're following our live stream at the top of this page, you'll have just heard that lift-off has been pushed back another 34 minutes due to a "wayward boat" in the launch range.

The new launch time is now 02:03 local time (07:03 GMT).

If all goes according to plan, the launch of New Glenn will have several stages, so let us break them down for you:

• The first stage will be lift-off, when the rocket fires up seven huge engines and starts its ascent
• A few minutes into the flight, the booster will detach from the rocket
• The booster will then autonomously descend to a landing platform several hundred miles away in the Atlantic ocean, firing up its engines again to soften the landing and deploying six legs to stand on
• Meanwhile in the air, the other part of the rocket will continue its journey into orbit, packed with technology on board that will enable teams on Earth to evaluate flight capabilities and ground systems
• The mission is expected to take around six hours in total

What is the significance of the New Glenn launch?published at 06:17 Greenwich Mean Time 16 January

06:17 GMT 16 January

Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent

The launch is a big moment for Jeff Bezos because he has fallen far behind in his personal space race with fellow billionaire Elon Musk.

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.

In that time Blue Origin has had no launches into orbit. Its New Shepard rocket has been launched into space briefly successfully 27 times, but not into orbit because it is not powerful enough.

New Glenn is capable of going into orbit and potentially to the Moon – so the rocket system is Bezos’ attempt at catching up with his space rival.

The brand new system is unlikely to go perfectly, but the fact that New Glenn is finally ready for its first test flight is a signal to SpaceX that Blue Origin hard on its heels and planning to take them on for contracts to deploy satellites, build space stations and taking astronauts to the Moon.

Image source, Blue Origin handout via European Pressphoto Agency

Good morning from the London newsroom where we're waiting for a second launch attempt by Jeff Bezos' New Glenn rocket.

It's after 01:00 in Florida, where the rocket will blast off from, meaning the launch window is officially open.

The goal is for the New Glenn rocket to lift off and send a vehicle to orbit. The rocket's booster stage is designed to be reusable and it is due to land on a platform which has been towed out to sea.

If successful, the rocket could become a serious competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX.

We'll be bringing you a live stream from Cape Canaveral, which you'll be able to follow at the top of this page - just press watch live.