The billionaire space race entered a new phase today when Jeff Bezos Blue Origin successfully launched its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida.At 2:03AM ET on Thursday morning, New Glenns seven reusable BE-4 engines ignited to propel the NG-1 rocket into space, with the second stage and payload reaching medium Earth orbit to achieve Blue Origins primary mission goal. In parallel, the first stage booster dubbed, So Youre Telling Me Theres A Chance autonomously descended to its landing platform located several hundred miles downrange in the Atlantic. As it approached the Jacklyn barge, the booster lost contact with control and stopped sending data. Blue Origin confirmed that the booster was lost during landing.Blue Origins goal for todays uncrewed launch was for New Glenn to reach orbit. Anything beyond that would be a bonus like activating a prototype of the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload vehicle or landing the reusable booster. No matter what, we will learn a lot,said Blue Origin CEO Dave Limpahead of todays launch.Todays flight profile. Success meant launching into orbit, everything else was a bonus. Image: Blue OriginThe launch comes after almost a decade of development and puts Elon Musks SpaceX on notice. New Glenn has about the same carrying capacity as SpaceXs Falcon Heavy, and is meant to shuttle cargo into space on the reusable launch platform. This includes satellites for Blue Origins rival to Starlinks constellation of high-speed low-latency internet service. The first of these 3,236 Project Kuiper satellites are expected to launch into low Earth orbit soon, aboard SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket before New Glenn can take over the heavy lifting.