The company, started by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reset its countdown clock repeatedly over a period of just over two hours before eventually postponing the test flight to another day.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin filled its New Glenn rocket with propellants on Thursday morning for its debut launch from Florida, the company's second attempt this week to get the rocket in space and kick start its rivalry with SpaceX in the satellite launch market.

Bezos’ space company Blue Origin started at about the same time as Musk’s SpaceX but since then Musk’s firm has launched more than 400 of its Falcon 9 rockets into orbit and is testing out its giant Starship rocket which it hopes will send astronauts to the Moon and one day possibly on to Mars.