SpaceX's billionaire boss Elon Musk on Thursday congratulated Jeff Bezos, founder of rival space company Blue Origin, after the firm launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time.

SpaceX launched Starship on Thursday for a seventh test flight, after weather concerns pushed back an experiment that will feature the spacecraft’s first payload deployment test, and while it successfully caught the Super Heavy Booster, Starship lost connection and “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

Named after the first American to orbit Earth, the New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida, soaring from the same pad used to launch NASA’s Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft a half-century ago.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's space company has blasted its first rocket into orbit in a bid to challenge the dominance of Elon Musk's SpaceX. The New Glenn rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 02:02 local time (07:02 GMT).

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to X on Thursday night to explain what his company believes may have caused part of the Starship rocket to experience a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."

Elon Musk took to X to share GIFs from the movie "Step Brothers," comparing himself and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to the film's two main characters after Bezos's space company, Blue Origin, successfully launched its first rocket into orbit.

Blue Origin LLC’s new flagship rocket lifted off for the first time and successfully reached orbit in a crucial test of the Jeff Bezos-backed firm’s ability to challenge SpaceX’s ironclad grip on the launch market.

Plus: Blue Origin and SpaceX launch big rockets, how magnets could guide lasers to make better computers, how to best work with your IT department and more.

Several space stocks have shrugged off the explosion of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft during its seventh flight test SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has described the explosion of the company's Starship spacecraft during its seventh flight test Thursday as "barely a bump in the road,

Elon Musk’s company said Starship broke apart — what it called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” The spacecraft’s six engines appeared to shut down one by one during ascent, with contact lost just 8½ minutes into the flight.