Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company successfully launched and landed its New Glenn rocket Thursday afternoon, marking a major technical breakthrough for the company as it works to catch up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The 320-foot-tall rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shortly before 4 p.m. Eastern and successfully separated the rocket’s first-stage booster.

The booster the company dubbed “Never Tell Me the Odds” then fell back to Earth, passing through cloud cover as its engines fired to slow itself. It landed on a barge named “Jacklyn” — after Bezos’s late mother — and powered down onto a platform marked with the company’s signature feather to cheers from employees. The New Glenn later deployed the two NASA satellites into space.

The success of the Ne

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