Blue Origin, a startup space company owned by Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos, launched an experimental suborbital spaceship from Texas, in a test flight that could eventually lead to commercial unmanned and passenger spaceflight services. The New Shepard vehicle blasted off on Wednesday from Blue Origin’s test facility near Van Horn, Texas, and rose to an altitude of 58 miles (93 km) before the capsule separated and parachuted back to Earth.

"Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return," Bezos said in a statement.

The descent of the liquid hydrogen- and liquid oxygen-fueled rocket, however, was not successful.

"We lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent," Bezos noted. "Fortunately, we’ve already been in work for some time on an improved hydraulic system ... We’ll be ready to fly again soon."

Blue Origin expects to fly New Shepard dozens of times unmanned before test pilots are aboard.

The company is developing spaceships to fly experiments, satellites and passengers into space.

Virgin Galactic, the U.S. offshoot of Richard Branson’s London-based Virgin Group, also plans to resume test flights of its six-passenger, two-pilot SpaceShipTwo vehicle later this year, following a fatal accident in October.