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.

Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company Blue Origin on Thursday launched its new mega-rocket, called New Glenn, into orbit for the first time. The rocket lifted

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit early Thursday, in a critical milestone that comes some 25 years after the billionaire founded the company with the goal of reducing the cost of access to space.