Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin has successfully launched its massive New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time, marking a significant challenge to Elon Musk's dominance in the commercial space industry.

Thursday morning, the new space race began in earnest. This time it’s not USA vs the Soviets, but a home-grown billionaire vs billionaire face-off. 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,

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos founded the company 25 years ago. He took part in Monday’s countdown from Mission Control, located at the rocket factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center about 50 miles east of Orlando, Florida. No matter what happens, Bezos said Sunday evening, “we’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going.”