Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin completed the first successful flight of its second New Shepard ship, while China’s Deep Blue Aerospace has announced it will launch paying customers into suborbital space by 2027 as both firms vie for early market share in the space tourism industry.

Blue Origin’s 27th mission saw the debut of the firm’s second human-rated vehicle for the New Shepard programme in a bid to expand its flight capacity to meet customer demand.

On Wednesday, the uncrewed NS-27 mission finally lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in west Texas after scrapping two previous launches set to take place earlier in the month.

The flight carried five payloads on the booster and seven inside the crew capsule (RSS Kármán Line), including tens of thousands of postcards as part of Club for the Future’s Postcards to Space programme. Each postcard will be returned to its creator stamped “Flown to Space.”

“We look forward to welcoming crew onboard RSS Kármán Line soon and offering the New...