Amazon’s Jeff Bezos founded the company 25 years ago. He took part in Monday’s countdown from Mission Control, located at the rocket factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center about 50 miles east of Orlando, Florida. No matter what happens, Bezos said Sunday evening, “we’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going.”

Blue Origin expects the New Glenn to provide a viable alternative to SpaceX's market-dominating Falcon family of rockets.