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.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (and many others) posted pics of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, named for astronaut John Glenn, on social after liftoff.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket is about to make a second launch attempt from Florida The reusable rocket had initially been due to set off earlier this week, but was postponed due to a "vehicle subsystem issue" The rocket, New Glenn, is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth