SpaceX rival’s rocket explodes during test
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded in a massive fireball while undergoing a test on a Florida launchpad Thursday evening.
The development is a major setback to the Jeff Bezos-backed firm in its efforts to challenge a dominant SpaceX.
The firm was preparing the vehicle for its fourth launch, which was slated to deploy a batch of satellites for Amazon.com’s Leo, a rival satellite network to SpaceX’s Starlink.
None of the satellites were on the rocket when it exploded, a spokesperson for Amazon said.
In a post on X, Blue Origin said the rocket experienced an “anomaly” during the test. All personnel have been accounted for and are safe, the company said.
New Glenn, which is key to Blue Origin’s plans for space exploration, is years behind schedule and has faced longer-than-expected waiting periods between flights.
The explosion is the latest blow to its reputation as a reliable alternative to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
The Blue Origin rocket is set to serve a key role in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the Moon.
Earlier this week, NASA awarded Blue Origin a lucrative contract to land rovers on the Moon.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the space agency will work with its partners to support a “thorough investigation” of the incident.
NASA will provide any information on the impacts to the Artemis and lunar programs as it becomes available.
“Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult,” Isaacman said in a post on X.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said it is aware of the failure and there was no impact on air traffic.
The test was not within the scope of FAA licensed activities, the agency said, referring further questions to the company.
The New Glenn rocket is also one of an elite group of vehicles that is supposed to deliver the most critical US national security satellites to orbit for the Pentagon.
Second major failure in two months
Blue Origin recently 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.
However, the upper portion of the rocket experienced an issue in space and didn’t achieve enough thrust, failing to put the satellite it was carrying for AST SpaceMobile into the proper orbit.
Ultimately, the satellite fell back to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.
The FAA had recently approved Blue Origin’s investigative report that analysed the issue on the third flight, and the company said corrective measures had been implemented.
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