A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded during a test firing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station late Thursday night, shaking homes across Florida’s Space Coast and briefly illuminating the sky in orange, company and military officials said. No one was hurt in the explosion, which occurred during an engine test ahead of a planned satellite launch next week.
Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, said in a post on X that it was “too early to know the root cause” but that Blue Origin would repair whatever was damaged and return to flight. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it,” Bezos wrote.
The explosion is the second major incident for New Glenn in recent months. The massive rocket was grounded in April after an engine failure on its third flight left a satellite in the wrong orbit. That mission was only the third time New Glenn had flown, and Blue Origin has been working to resolve the problem ever since.
Blue Origin designed New Glenn to carry large payloads into space and compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for commercial and government launch contracts. NASA plans to use the rocket to launch lunar landers, including the systems that will carry astronauts to the moon’s surface as part of the Artemis program. Thursday’s explosion is likely to delay those plans further, though neither Blue Origin nor NASA immediately disclosed a revised timeline.
Blue Origin said it is investigating the cause of the explosion. The company did not say whether the rocket involved in the test was the same vehicle that had been grounded in April.