Huntsville-built rocket engines pushed a new craft into space early Thursday in a milestone for both Blue Origin and NASA’s hopes of a permanent base on the moon.

The New Glenn heavy-lift vehicle’s seven BE-4 engines – put together on the company’s sprawling campus at Cummings Research Park – ignited at 2:03 a.m. on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, according to Blue Origin.

A set of different engines, also assembled in the Rocket City, pushed the company’s second-stage payload into medium Earth orbit about 13 minutes later. The Blue Ring Pathfinder will test core flight, ground systems, and operational capabilities of the Blue Ring payload platform, which can accommodate up to 6,600 pounds of cargo, primarily satellites.