Climate and Science Reporter
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company has exploded its first rocket in the bid to challenge Alone Musk’s SpaceX’s dominance.
The new Glenn rocket was launched from Cape Canvart Space Force Station in Florida at 02:02 local time (07:02 GMT).
It strongly creates two richest men in the world against each other in a commercial space race, which is ready to blow up large and more powerful rockets.
Both want to populate the sky with more satellites, run private space stations, and provide transport for regular visits by people on the moon.
“Congratulations to reach the classroom on the first attempt!” Musk wrote Bezos in a post on X.
Bezos’ space company Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said it was “incredibly proud”.
He said, “We will learn a lot from today and will try again in our next launch in this spring.”
Bezos’s team overcame technical obstacles, delaying the beginning of this week when the formation of snow stopped a launch.
Blue Origin employees and crowds gathered near Cape Canverals, as 98 meters high rocket hurt the classroom.
But the company failed to unload the new Glenn’s main rocket engine, or booster on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was hoped that the booster would be reusable to the future launch, but after a flight of about 20 minutes, the company confirmed that it had lost the engine.
Bezos’ company Blue Origin has struggled to match the speed set by SpaceX. But this launch will be seen as a major step for business.
The new Glenn rocket was named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to revolve around the Earth over 60 years ago.
Rocket SpaceX’s most commonly used rocket is more powerful than Falcon 9. It can also carry more satellites, and Bezos wants to use it as part of its project Kuper, which aims to deploy thousands of low-earth satellites to provide broadband services.
The project will compete directly with Musk’s Starlink Service.
Blue Oralin MediaJeff Bezos founded Blue Origin 25 years ago, claiming that he was “working millions of people and living in space.”
Over the years, the enterprise has sent a small, re -reset rocket called New Shepard to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. It has taken the passengers and payload to themselves in 2021 with Bezos.
But Blue Origin has been dramatically improved by SpaceX, which launched its rockets 134 times last year.
And the new generation rocket of SpaceX, called Starship, is still more powerful. The company hopes to launch it in its seventh Test flight later today.
Some experts say that a successful new Glenn rocket will create real competition between the two companies and can reduce the cost of space operation.
Dr. at Open University in UK. Shimon Barber suggests, “What you are going to see, do these two companies challenge each other.”
Governments have historically spent billions on making rockets and sending missions to space.
But the US space agency NASA is moving away from relying only on public funds and has issued heavy contracts to private companies to provide rockets and other space services.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already received billions of dollars of space contracts.
His close relationship with Donald Trump, the next US President, could further strengthen his company.
