Blue Origin rocket explodes during ground test

According to information shared by the company on X, the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket experienced an anomaly during a ground test known as hot fire on Thursday.

Video taken Thursday evening from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shows a rocket exploding on the launch pad.

unknown content element

–

“All personnel are responsible and safe,” Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said. separate X post. “It’s too early to know the root cause, but we’re already trying to find it. It’s a very difficult day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs to be rebuilt and get back to flying. It’ll be worth it.”

The company announced plans for New Glenn to return to flights earlier this week. failure during the rocket’s third flight It led to a Federal Aviation Administration investigation on April 19. During the April mission, the rocket’s first stage booster successfully landed on a sea barge, but the rocket’s upper portion or second stage failed to deliver its payload (AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite) to a safe orbit.

New Glenn’s fourth mission was intended to carry 48 satellites to join Amazon Leo’s broadband constellation.

“The FAA is aware that the Blue Origin New Glenn vehicle experienced an anomaly during a static fire test at the runway in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 28 at approximately 9 p.m. local time,” the agency said in a statement to CNN. “This testing was not within the scope of FAA licensed activities. There was no impact to air traffic. Please contact Blue Origin for more information.”

Blue Origin did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

“NASA is aware of the anomaly tonight at Launch Complex 36 involving Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,” NASA chief Jared Isaacman X said in a statement Thursday. “Space flight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult. We will work with our partners to support comprehensive investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and return to rocket launches.”

According to a statement released by the US Space Force, range officials are coordinating with Blue Origin and its partners to determine the exact cause of the anomaly.

“The Eastern Ranges serve as a Department of Defense testing and training area that supports critical development, testing, evaluation and launch activities that advance national security and space capabilities,” according to the statement. “These operations often involve developmental systems and new technologies, and the nature of such testing carries inherent risks, including the potential for abnormalities.”

The ups and downs of New Glenn

first flight New Glenn (Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket) was deemed successful on January 16, 2025. However, the company failed to achieve its bonus goal of guiding the vehicle’s first stage booster to a safe landing on the offshore platform after takeoff. The company later attributed the failed rescue attempt to the engines not properly reigniting.

Designed to allow Blue Origin to refurbish and reuse rocket boosters, this landing maneuver aims to save money and reduce launch costs, much like SpaceX has done with its Falcon rockets. If New Glenn achieves consistent success with reusability in this way, it could potentially unseat SpaceX’s dominance in the industry.

Blue Origin spent 10 months fine-tuning the vehicle to ensure a successful booster landing and Second launch of new Glenn It set sail in November 2025, seemingly without any hitch. The booster landed safely and the flight also delivered a significant payload. landmark NASA mission The ship named Escapade embarks on its circuitous journey towards Mars.

The company celebrated the hydrofoil landing after New Glenn’s third flight in April, but Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp acknowledged it in a speech. Publish on X Losing AST SpaceMobile’s satellite was not an ideal situation.

“While we were pleased with the nominal booster recovery, we clearly failed to deliver on the mission our customer wanted and our team expected,” Limp wrote at the time. “Initial data indicates that on our second GS2 firing, one of the BE-3U engines did not produce sufficient thrust to achieve our target orbit.”

Blue Origin’s lunar ambitions

Blue Origin announced in January pauses space tourism rocket flightsKnown as New Shepard, it will focus on developing manned lunar landers for two years. New Shepard has been launching 10-minute flights since 2021, taking celebrities, special guests and wealthy thrill-seekers to the edge of space.

Both Bezos’ company and SpaceX have NASA contracts to develop vehicles that can carry astronauts from space to the lunar surface for the Artemis program. SpaceX plans to use the Starship megarocket for this mission, a massive rocket system that Musk originally billed for travel to Mars, and is expected to undertake the first manned landing attempts in NASA’s plans. But Starship is still in the early stages of development, and over the past few years prototypes have exploded during short, suborbital test flights.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin is building a lunar lander that looks more like a traditional Apollo-style vehicle. However, the company has not launched a test flight yet.

Transport secretary Sean Duffy issued warnings to the dueling companies in October, when he also served as NASA’s acting administrator: If SpaceX’s lander falls too far behind schedule, he said, NASA could use Blue Origin’s lander to return humans to the moon as soon as 2028.

“If SpaceX is behind but Blue Origin can do it before them, it’s a good thing for Blue Origin,” Duffy told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in October. “But… we will not wait for one company. We will take this further and win the second space race against the Chinese.”

It remains to be seen whether either vehicle will be ready to complete a crewed test mission in low Earth orbit next year, as NASA Administrator Isaacman hopes, given surveillance officials’ doubts that both landers could be ready to land on the Moon in 2028.

It’s unclear how Thursday night’s anomaly will affect Blue Origin’s goals for the month ahead.

“We will provide information as it becomes available regarding any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs,” Isaacman said in a post on Thursday evening.

CNN’s Jackie Wattles and Amanda Jackson contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at: CNN.com