SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has reacted to the debut launch of a rocket by Blue Origin, the rival space company owned by Jeff Bezos, on Thursday (Jan 16).

Advertisment

Musk congratulated Bezos for his new milestone after Blue Origin launched its New Glenn into orbit for the first time.

Also read | Watch: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin makes debut launch of New Glenn rocket

“Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt! @JeffBezos,” Musk wrote on his X platform shortly after Bezos confirmed the successful launch on Thursday (Jan 16).

Advertisment

SpaceX vs Blue Origin

The New Glenn launch was crucial for Blue Origin to compete with its rival SpaceX, the private space company owned by Musk, which dominates the industry.

Also read | Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches two private lunar landers aboard Falcon 9

Advertisment

A day earlier, on January 15, Musk’s SpaceX launched two private lunar landers. The landers built by US and Japanese companies left the Earth aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as a part of a rideshare to the Moon.

The SpaceX rocket was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 01:00 local time on Wednesday (Jan 15), carrying two landers, one from America's Firefly Aerospace and the other from Japan's iSpace.

The Moon exploration mission is backed by NASA and will be its biggest commercial delivery to the Earth’s natural satellite so far.

Also read | 'Few anomalies': Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin calls off rocket launch

Meanwhile, Blue Origin has also secured a NASA contract for the launch of two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also deploy Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation that will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink.

New Glenn launch

The debut mission, which was previously delayed by several years, blasted off at 2:03 am (07:03 GMT) from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in the US state of Florida.

The initial test launch, which was originally scheduled for Monday (Jan 13), was postponed until today after facing repeated pauses during the countdown. The company later cited an icing issue on a purge line for the delay and said that they would attempt the launch on Tuesday (Jan 14). However, the weather conditions were unfavourable on the day, which led to further delay.

Also read | ISRO's SpaDeX Mission successful: India becomes 4th nation to accomplish space docking

Blue Origin will also attempt to land New Glenn's first-stage booster on a drone ship, which is stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometres) away from the launch site in the Atlantic Ocean.

While these types of landings are a usual routine for SpaceX, Blue Origin will be making its first attempt at it.

(With inputs from agencies)