Blue Origin's New Glenn Explodes During Static Fire Test

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded during a static fire test on Thursday evening at its Florida launch site. The super heavy lift rocket produced a massive fireball above the launch site along the Florida coast at LC-36A after engine ignition. The first stage is fueled with methane.

The static fire test was being filmed by NASASpaceflight.com on its Space Coast Live feed, which captured video of the conflagration that followed destruction of the booster. It is possibly the most dramatic and powerful rocket explosion since the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket was destroyed during a launch attempt in 1969. The test was being conducted ahead of NG-4.

There was no immediate indication as to what caused the rocket to fail during the initial stages of the static fire test. The failure originated with the first stage of the rocket, which is powered by seven BE-4 engines. Sources said the problem appeared to start in the engine section of the vehicle.

“It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it,” Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.” No one was injured during the failure, which sources said caused extensive damage to the company’s large and complex launch site. During a pad failure in 2016 with the smaller Falcon 9 rocket, it took SpaceX more than a year to rebuild its seriously damaged Space Launch Complex-40 pad.

This is the worst disaster in the history of Blue Origin, founded in 2000. The company has launched New Glenn three times, during each of which the first stage performed well. The company had already demonstrated the ability to land the New Glenn first stage and impressively reused it in April for the first time.

During that third flight, carrying the Blue Bird 7 satellite, an upper stage issue caused the mission to fail. However the company responded rapidly to the in-flight failure and returned to the launch pad in less than two months this week. The first stage for this mission, nicknamed No, It’s Necessary, was making its debut launch.

Prior to this launch attempt Blue Origin had in its inventory two first stages and about six New Glenn upper stages completed, and it was poised to break into a monthly launch cadence. By all accounts, the rocket was viewed as a major success for a company which, for so long, had seemed to plod along. New Glenn’s success catapulted the company to the upper echelon of spaceflight enterprises in the world. That Blue Origin was on the precipice of accelerating further makes this setback all the more painful.

The failure of New Glenn also has major implications for NASA and its surging efforts to return humans to the Moon before the end of this decade, and to establish a lunar base on the surface. On Tuesday NASA announced that it had selected the New Glenn rocket to deliver the first two rovers, built by Lunar Outpost and Astrolab, to the lunar surface in 2028. Blue Origin has developed its own cargo lunar lander, Blue Moon Mark 1, designed to fly on top of New Glenn. It was due to launch this fall to the Moon for the first time, and again next year carrying the VIPER rover to the Moon for NASA.

Then there is the larger Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, which is due to fly on a larger and more powerful version of the New Glenn rocket with nine first stage engines, known as 9×4. NASA is counting on the Mark 2 lander, alongside SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, to carry humans to the Moon.