A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad during a test, in a blow to the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos as it seeks to narrow the gap with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Video posted by NASASpaceflight, a YouTube channel that live-streams launches from Florida, showed the rocket igniting on the pad at about 2am GMT (6am UAE time) on Friday before erupting into a massive fireball.
Blue Origin said the New Glenn experienced an “anomaly”, a term commonly used by rocket companies to describe a launch failure or explosion.
“We experienced an anomaly during today’s hot-fire test. All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more,” the company said in a post on X.
A hot-fire test involves firing up a rocket engine while it is anchored to the ground. In a separate post on X, Mr Bezos said it was "too early to know the root cause" of the incident. "Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it," the Amazon founder added.
Blue Origin said on Wednesday that it was preparing the New Glenn rocket to launch 48 Amazon Leo satellites into low-Earth orbit, as part of efforts to build a broadband constellation to rival Mr Musk’s Starlink network. Blue Origin did not provide a launch date.
The company has spent billions of dollars and worked for about a decade to develop New Glenn, a rocket that stands 29 storeys tall. It has a reusable first stage that is meant to compete with SpaceX's Falcon fleet and its more powerful Starship.
Mr Musk responded on X to a video of the New Glenn explosion, saying: “Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard.”
The New Glenn is years behind schedule and has faced longer-than-expected waiting periods between flights. It is one of a group of spacecraft that are supposed to carry US national security satellites into orbit for the Pentagon. The rocket is also set to serve a key role in Nasa’s Artemis programme, which aims to send humans back to the Moon. Nasa this week awarded Blue Origin a lucrative contract to land rovers on the lunar surface.
Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman said the US space agency would work with partners to support a “thorough investigation” of the incident. “Spaceflight is unforgiving and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult,” he said on X.
The US Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said it was aware of the New Glenn failure and that there had been no effect on air traffic.
Blue Origin launched New Glenn on its third flight in April. The rocket successfully took off and the vehicle’s booster landed on a company barge at sea.
But the upper portion of the rocket experienced an issue in space and did not generate enough thrust, failing to put the satellite it was carrying for AST SpaceMobile into orbit. The satellite fell back towards Earth and burnt up in the atmosphere.
The FAA recently approved Blue Origin’s investigative report that analysed the issue on the third flight. The company said corrective measures had been put in place.
With reporting from agencies
