After years of delays, the billionaire’s Blue Origin space company launched its New Glenn rocket early Thursday.

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.

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.

Shrugging off bad weather, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched its powerful New Glenn rocket on its maiden flight early Thursday, lighting up a cloudy overnight sky as it climbed away from Cape Canaveral in a high-stakes bid to compete with Elon Musk's industry-leading SpaceX.

Blue Origin expects the New Glenn to provide a viable alternative to SpaceX's market-dominating Falcon family of rockets.

After more than a decade of development, hype and pent-up demand, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace venture Blue Origin will at long last attempt to put a rocket into orbit. New Glenn, originally intended to

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.

During the flight, the rocket's first stage failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, but its primary goal of successfully placing the satellite into Earth's orbit was achieved.

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

Jeff Bezos-led Blue Origin successfully launched ... the attempt to land the rocket’s booster on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean faced challenges. Media reports confirmed that the booster was ...

Gregg Newton/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images On Thursday morning, at a time when most people in the United States were sleeping, Jeff Bezos ... arc over the Atlantic Ocean, lit up in ...

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.