Blue Origin, the spaceflight company set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is about to perform the first launch of its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket.

Kent-based Blue Origin plans to launch its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket overnight. At 320 feet tall, New Glenn towers over SpaceX’s 229-foot-tall Falcon 9.

SpaceX has confirmed Flight 7 will be no earlier than Monday, Jan. 13 from Boca Chica, Texas.) Coming soon to American launch pads: the competition of the heavy lifters as Jeff Bezos' New Glenn and Elon Musk's Starship may take to the skies within a very close timespan.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's company Blue Origin is poised to launch its first orbital rocket next week, marking a pivotal moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

After years of development, Blue Origin is finally ready to conduct the maiden test flight of the company’s New Glenn rocket. The flight is currently scheduled for a three-hour launch window on Friday, Jan. 10, starting at 1 am EST. The company plans to begin live streaming the event on BlueOrigin.com about an hour before the launch.

Blue Origin, which was established in 2000 by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has been developing New Glenn for about a decade. The 320-foot-tall (98 meters) rocket sports a reusable first stage and can deliver about 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO).

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin could revolutionize the space industry with its New Glenn rocket. Here's how it stacks up against SpaceX's Falcon 9.

The company, owned by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch the vehicle to orbit.

New Glenn will launch with the Blue Ring Pathfinder. Blue Origin said the goal with this launch is to test “Blue Ring’s core flight, ground systems, and operational capabilities as part of the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) Orbital Logistics prototype effort.”

The successful launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket this week would have a notable impact on local space exploration.

The first Starlink launch of 2025 launched on Monday, Jan. 6, at 3:43 PM EST (20:43 UTC) from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. Launch occurred at the very end of a four-hour window that ended at 3:44 PM EST (20:44 UTC) after concerns about weather earlier in the day.