The rocket, whose inaugural mission had been delayed by several years, blasted off at 2:03 am (0703 GMT) from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the US state of Florida, a live webcast showed.
The mission is seen as critical to Blue Origin's efforts to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX, which dominates the commercial space industry.
"LIFTOFF! New Glenn is beginning its first ever ascent toward the stars," Blue Origin said on social media platform X.
"New Glenn has passed the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space!" the firm posted just a few minutes later.
Blue Origin said in a statement that the second-stage engine had reached "its final orbit", adding that the Blue Ring advanced spaceship prototype that was along for the ride was "receiving data and performing well."
The first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, was lost during descent, it added.
"I'm incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt," said the company's CEO, Dave Limp, in the statement.
"We knew landing our booster... on the first try was an ambitious goal. We'll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring."
Blue Origin had intended to land the booster -- powered by liquid methane and designed for up to 25 flights -- on a drone ship stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.
Rival SpaceX has made such landings now routine, but this would have been Blue Origin's first shot at the feat.
Fellow billionaire Musk commended Bezos on New Glenn's inaugural launch, offering congratulations "on reaching orbit on the first attempt" in a post on his X platform.
Upping the high-stakes rivalry, SpaceX is planning another orbital test later Thursday of Starship -- its gargantuan new-generation rocket.
- Repeated delays -
An initial test launch of the towering 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honor of American astronaut John Glenn, had been scrubbed early Monday after repeated halts during the countdown.
The company later said it had discovered an icing issue on a purge line and postponed the launch.
With the latest mission, dubbed NG-1, Amazon founder Bezos was taking aim at the only man in the world wealthier than him: fellow tech innovator Musk.
Musk's SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, which have become vital for the commercial sector, Pentagon and NASA.
"SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor... this is great," G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, earlier told AFP, expecting the competition to drive down costs.
- Blue Ring -
Aboard the New Glenn test flight and now in orbit is a Defense Department-funded prototype of an advanced spaceship called Blue Ring, which could one day journey through the solar system.
Physically, the gleaming white New Glenn rocket dwarfs SpaceX's 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.
It slots between Falcon 9 and its big sibling, Falcon Heavy, in terms of mass capacity but holds an edge with its wider payload fairing, capable of carrying the equivalent of 20 trucks.
Blue Origin has already secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.
For now, however, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, while other rivals -- United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Rocket Lab -- trail far behind.
Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space.
But where Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy industry off-planet onto floating space platforms in order to preserve Earth, "humanity's blue origin."
Five things to know about New Glenn, Blue Origin's new rocket
Washington (AFP) Jan 16, 2025 -
Blue Origin, the US space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2000, made its maiden voyage into orbital space Thursday with its brand-new rocket, New Glenn.
Here are five key things to know about the heavy-lift vehicle aiming to challenge SpaceX's dominance in the commercial space market.
- Homage -
New Glenn honors a legendary astronaut: John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.
It follows in the steps of New Shepard, Blue Origin's first rocket which was named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
Standing 320 feet (98 meters) tall -- roughly equivalent to a 32-story building -- New Glenn is both larger and more powerful than its smaller sibling, which is used for suborbital space tourism.
- Heavy-lift -
New Glenn is classified as a "heavy-lift launcher," capable of placing substantial payloads into low-Earth orbit. It is expected to carry up to 45 tons into orbit.
That is more than double that of SpaceX's Falcon 9, which can lift around 22 tons, though it falls short of the Falcon Heavy's 63.8-ton capacity.
However, New Glenn has a unique edge: its wider payload fairing, which can accommodate larger objects.
It "has the largest capacity to put objects in space, large objects" as a result of its wider payload fairing, Elliott Bryner, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told AFP.
- Swiss knife -
Its versatility means New Glenn could become a "Swiss Army knife" of rockets, capable of deploying a diverse array of payloads to both low and higher orbits.
These are set to include commercial and military satellites -- as well as Project Kuiper, Bezos's planned space internet constellation, to compete with SpaceX's Starlink.
New Glenn also has the potential to carry crewed spacecraft, noted George Nield, president of Commercial Space Technologies.
"One other potential use is for commercial space stations," he added.
With the International Space Station slated for decommissioning in 2030, the race is on to develop replacements.
Blue Origin is among the contenders vying to build the first privately run platform.
- Partially reusable -
Like SpaceX's Falcon 9, New Glenn features a reusable first-stage booster -- designed for up to 25 flights -- and an expendable second stage.
But to reuse the rocket, Blue Origin first must land it, on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
This is no small feat: It took SpaceX six years to perfect the maneuver with Falcon 9 after its debut launch in 2010.
Blue Origin said Thursday it had failed to stick the landing, losing New Glenn's booster during descent.
"Landing a rocket like this, the way they're doing it, is definitely not simple," Bryner said ahead of the launch. "The level of technology required to do this is unbelievable."
Yet achieving reusability is crucial to reducing costs and broadening access to space, added Nield.
Blue Origin has mastered landing with its much smaller New Shepard rocket, which touches down on solid ground.
- Higher tech -
Under the hood, New Glenn's propulsion system represents a step up.
The first stage is powered by liquid methane, a cleaner and more efficient fuel than the kerosene used in both stages of Falcon 9.
Its second stage uses liquid hydrogen, an even cleaner and more powerful fuel, though it's more challenging to handle due to its cryogenic properties.
"It's the difference between driving a, you know, a Ferrari or a Volkswagen," William Anderson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University, told AFP earlier, comparing the technology behind New Glenn and Falcon 9.
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