STORY: Blue Origin's giant New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida Thursday morning.

It was its first mission to space and a giant leap for Jeff Bezos' company as it aims to rival Elon Musk's SpaceX in the satellite launch business.

New Glenn, standing at thirty stories tall with a reusable first stage, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Its seven engines thundered for miles under cloudy skies.

Hundreds of employees roared in applause when the rocket's second stage made it to orbit and achieved a long-awaited milestone.

The rocket's reusable first stage booster was due to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from its second stage, but failed to make that landing.

The mission was a culmination of a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar development journey.

It marks Blue Origin's first trek to Earth's orbit in the 25 years since Bezos founded the company.

Secured inside New Glenn's payload bay for the mission is the first prototype of Blue Origin's Blue Ring vehicle.

It's a spacecraft the company plans to sell to the Pentagon and commercial customers for national security and satellite servicing missions.

Bezos watched the launch from a few miles away in Blue Origin's mission control room.

New Glenn is expected to press ahead with a backlog of dozens of missions worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

It includes up to 27 launches for Amazon's Kuiper satellite internet network that will rival SpaceX's Starlink service.

New Glenn is the latest U.S. rocket to debut in recent years as governments and private companies beef up their space programs