Blue Origin’s New Glenn giant rocket exploded during a test at its Cape Canaveral, Florida, launch site, according to a livestream on NASASpaceFlight.com and SpaceFlight Now. Blue Origin later confirmed the explosion.
Jeff Bezos’ space company was conducting a static burn test of its new rocket ahead of its fourth launch scheduled for the next few weeks. This rocket was scheduled to carry the internet satellite Amazon Leo into space. This means that the rocket was likely fully charged with fuel, making it one of the largest rocket explosions in U.S. history and potentially contributing to the worst failure in Blue Origin’s history.
Blue Origin said in an X Post Thursday night:[a]Bezos wrote that everyone was “safe.” The company did not say what happened, only that an “abnormality” had occurred.
“It is too early to know the root cause, but we are already working to understand it. It is a very difficult day, but we will rebuild everything that needs to be rebuilt and get back to flying. It will be worth it,” Bezos wrote.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a post late Thursday that the agency will “work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess the short-term mission impact, and return to launching the rocket.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told TechCrunch in a statement that it was aware of the explosion and that there was “no impact to air traffic.” NASA and the Space Force did not respond to requests for comment.
The explosion will likely mean Blue Origin will have to suspend its New Glenn rocket program for an extended period of time while it resolves the issue. Blue Origin had planned to attempt up to 12 New Glenn launches this year, after spending nearly a decade developing New Glenn to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The company will also help power NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon, and the agency highlighted Blue Origin’s expected role in that program earlier this week. Isaacman said Thursday that NASA “will provide impact on the Artemis program and the Lunar Base program as soon as it becomes available.”
Blue Origin also aims to launch a national security mission for the Department of Defense.
Immediately after the explosion, Elon Musk wrote to X, “Very disappointing. Rockets are difficult.” “I hope you recover quickly.”
The explosion occurred just weeks after Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket made its third ever flight. The mission itself failed when the New Glenn upper stage failed to place the AST SpaceMobile satellite into orbit, resulting in a complete 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.
very new, late rocket
Blue Origin has spent years developing New Glenn while testing smaller suborbital rockets using the New Shepard program. While New Shepard has been ferrying the rich and famous (along with some scientific missions) to the edge of space on a fairly regular basis, Blue Origin has been constantly working behind the scenes on developing rockets that can carry actual commercial payloads, such as large satellites, into orbit.
The process took a long time, longer than Blue Origin expected, but it finally came to fruition in January 2025, when the company flew New Glenn for the first time.
New Glenn appeared to be a fairly successful rocket from the start. It reached orbit during its first flight, but its booster stage exploded before Blue Origin could land it on a drone ship at sea.
But Blue Origin had even more success with New Glenn’s second flight in November 2025. During that mission, the company launched a twin-engine spacecraft to Mars for NASA. Blue Origin also landed on its first booster stage during New Glenn’s second mission.
This allowed the company to refly the booster on New Glenn’s third mission, demonstrating that it has the ability to not only recover the first stage but also refurbish it for reuse. This is an important step in reducing the overall operating costs of a launch business.
The repurposed rocket booster flew again without incident and also landed a second time on one of Blue Origin’s drone ships during New Glenn’s third mission in April 2026. However, the company experienced a cryogenic failure in its upper stage during Mission 3, which led to the loss of the satellite.
This upcoming fourth mission was to be the first of 24 launches Amazon had contracted with Blue Origin. Amazon is currently building a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network called Leo. Amazon on Wednesday called New Glenn a “reusable heavy-lift rocket” and touted its ability to rely on Blue Origin to build its network.
Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch late Thursday that the Leo satellite was not included in the test.
Late Thursday, Rep. Mike Haridopoulos (R-Fla.), who represents a district in Cape Canaveral, wrote to X that he spoke with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman about the explosion.
“We are grateful that no injuries were reported and thank the first responders, technicians and launch crew who acted quickly. We are praying for Florida’s Space Coast and everyone involved,” he said.
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