Florida’s sky briefly lit up during the night as one of a handful of big new American-made rockets took flight. It was the first time a new space company achieved orbit on the first launch attempt.

Blue Origin, the rocket company Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos founded, notched one of the most substantial successes in its history on Thursday: sending a rocket to orbit.

For the first time since its founding, nearly a quarter of a century ago, Blue Origin had reached orbit. The long-awaited debut launch of the New Glenn rocket, a super-heavy lift vehicle developed largely with private funding, had come. And it was a smashing success.