Blue Origin’s New Glenn mega-rocket just exploded during testing at a launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to a live stream from NASASpaceFlight.com.
Jeff Bezos’ space company was performing a static fire test ahead of an anticipated fourth launch of the new rocket in the coming weeks. Rocket companies routinely clear out launchpads during testing, but it’s not immediately clear if anyone was injured. Blue Origin, NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Space Force did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The explosion likely means Blue Origin will have to pause the New Glenn rocket program for an extended period of time while it works through what went wrong. Blue Origin had been planning to attempt as many as 12 launches of New Glenn this year, after the company spent around a decade developing it in an attempt to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The company is also supposed to help power NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon, with the agency highlighting Blue Origin’s expected role in that program earlier this week.
“Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard,” Elon Musk wrote on X shortly after the explosion.
The explosion comes just a few weeks after Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket flew for the third time ever. That mission suffered its own failure when the New Glenn upper stage failed to deliver a satellite for AST SpaceMobile into orbit, causing a total loss of the mission. Just last week, the FAA cleared New Glenn to fly again after Blue Origin completed an investigation into the cause of the failure.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
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Source: techcrunch.com
