A rocket from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company dramatically exploded on the launchpad during a test on Friday.
Video posted by NASASpaceflight, a YouTube channel that livestreams launches from Florida, showed the New Glenn rocket igniting on the pad at about 9pm local time (3am BST on Friday) before erupting into a massive fireball that billowed skyward, sending a towering plume of flames and smoke into the air.
Blue Origin said it had experienced an “anomaly”, a term commonly used by rocket companies to describe a launch failure or explosion.
This is my video of the explosion of the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket at Cape Canaveral’s pad LC-36 a short time ago. Includes video & audio from roughly 5 miles away near Jetty Park. That was an absolutely enormous explosion!
— JohnCn (@JConcilus) May 29, 2026
Note: Thankfully, Blue says all staff are OK. pic.twitter.com/YePg5OmXd8
“We experienced an anomaly during today’s hotfire test. All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more,” the company said in a post on X.
What exactly happened?
A hot-fire test is where a rocket engine is fired up while anchored to the ground.
In a separate X post, 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,” he said.
What is the New Glenn rocket?
Blue Origin had been preparing the New Glenn rocket to launch 48 Amazon Leo satellites into low-Earth orbit, part of efforts to build a broadband constellation to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink network, linked to his SpaceX company.
Blue Origin has spent billions of dollars and roughly a decade developing New Glenn, a rocket 29-stories high with a reusable first stage meant to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon fleet and its more powerful Starship.
Musk responded on X to a video of the New Glenn explosion, saying: “Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard.”
With Reuters
