Hours after Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin nailed its first-ever orbital mission, SpaceX seized back the spotlight on Thursday as its latest test of Starship, its gargantuan next-generation megarocket, ended with the upper stage dramatically disintegrating over the Atlantic.

Blue Origin's New Glenn finally roared into orbit in the early hours of Thursday, with SpaceX's Starship rocket set to launch hours later.

After Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin nailed its first-ever orbital flight, Elon Musk's SpaceX is seizing back the spotlight on Thursday with the latest launch of Starship, the gargantuan next-generation rocket that could one day ferry humans to Mars.

The Amazon founder’s space company marked a major milestone Thursday with the first test flight of its New Glenn rocket.

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.

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.

Dramatic footage showing streaks of light zipping across the sky surfaced online following Elon Musk's Starship explosion over the Atlantic Ocean.

Blue Origin scored a major win with its New Glenn rocket launch, but SpaceX still leads the space industry with a Falcon fleet and upcoming Starship.

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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is set for an inaugural launch of its giant New Glenn rocket on Sunday, a long-awaited first leap to Earth orbit that sets up one of the biggest challenges yet to industry dominance enjoyed by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Elon Musk reposted a photo taken of him and Jeff Bezos at dinner together over twenty years ago. "Wow, a lot has happened in 21 years!" he wrote while reacting to the picture.

After Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin nailed its first-ever orbital flight, Elon Musk's SpaceX is seizing back the spotlight Thursday with the latest Starship launch.