Florida’s sky briefly lit up during the night as one of a handful of big new American-made rockets took flight. It was the first time a new space company achieved orbit on the first launch attempt.

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.

The New Glenn makes it safely into orbit for the inaugural test flight of a rocket that could rival those in Elon Musk's SpaceX fleet.