Blue Origin launched its tourist-orbiting test spacecraft 74 miles into space, making it the highest a rocket has been shot into the air by Jeff Bezos's rocket company, The Irish News reported.
Blue Origin is in a race to bring space tourist flights to the public and is hoping to make this a reality by 2019.
Bezos said that if Wednesday's launch of the New Shepard rocket from west Texas went well, then the company would be right on target, TechCrunch noted.
The crew capsule successfully separated from the booster and fired its escape motor at the right time, sending the capsule hurtling into space.
"The crew capsule was pushed hard by the escape test and we stressed the rocket to test that astronauts can get away from an anomaly at any time during flight," Blue Origin said in a statement, adding that the mission was a success.
Riding the spacecraft was Mannequin Skywalker, an instrumented dummy that has flown in the past, along with science and research payloads from commercial companies, universities and space agencies.
Bezos congratulated the team behind the tests for a successful operation.
"Super proud of the entire Blue Team who came together and made it happen," he said in a post to Twitter.
This was Blue Origin's ninth launch and the third for the New Shepard rocket used in this test, TechCrunch noted.
Executives at the company told a business conference last month they planned test flights with passengers on the New Shepard soon, and to start selling tickets next year.
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