Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Ground Test Ends in Fiery Florida Explosion

A ground test for a planned June launch for Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket resulted in a fiery explosion at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday night.

The “hotfire” test — in which a rocket’s engine or launch vehicle is fully engaged without actually taking off — was in preparation for a June mission, NG-4, that was set to launch 48 Amazon Leo broadband satellites into orbit. It’s unclear what the current timeline for that mission is.

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Amazon founder and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos said in a post on X that no one was hurt in the explosion. “All personnel are accounted for and safe. It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it,” he wrote. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.” 

Blue Origin’s previous mission, NG-3, was successful in April.

Footage posted online from the website Spaceflight Now shows a massive fireball engulfing the launch pad for the nighttime test.

Blue Origin’s X account posted Friday that debris from what it called the “hotfire anomaly” could wash ashore over the next few weeks. “If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety,” the company wrote. “Please report the location immediately.” It offered a hotline at 321-222-4355 and an email address, MissionRecovery@blueorigin.com, for those who find anything. 

‘Rockets are hard’

Blue Origin is one of several companies racing to launch satellites and get into space tourism, competing with SpaceX, Rocket Lab and NASA itself on rocket launches.

SpaceX has had its own share of misfires, most recently this month, when an apparently successful Starship V3 launch was followed by boosters dropping unsafely into the Gulf of Mexico, prompting an investigation and a grounding of rockets. Last year, SpaceX suffered a string of rocket setbacks.

After the Blue Origin explosion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reposted a video of himself on X that discussed SpaceX’s work and which included his observation that “rockets are hard.”