Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket explodes during test

The New Glenn rocket exploded during a hot fire test, a maneuver prior to a future orbital launch. According to Blue Origin, the entire team was evacuated and no injuries were reported in the accident.

“The entire team has been located and is safe,” said Jeff Bezos on his X social network account.

The cause of the explosion has not yet been clarified, but the company highlighted that it is already working to find it. “It’s a very difficult day, but we will rebuild whatever is necessary and we will fly again. It’s worth it,” added the American businessman.

Jared Isaacman, NASA administrator, spoke about what happened, saying that the American space agency team will collaborate in identifying the problem.

“We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess the near-term impact on missions, and return rockets to launch,” Isaacman said on his X account.

NASA will provide information on any impact of this accident on the Artemis program and the project to install a future lunar base. According to the agency’s administrator, “spaceflight is not forgiving of mistakes and developing a new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult.”

The New Glenn rocket was supposed to participate in upcoming satellite deployment missions, including devices from Amazon’s space internet network, a project also promoted by Bezos to compete with Starlink, from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The incident occurred just weeks after another problem with a commercial New Glenn launch, when a failure in one of the engines left a satellite in an incorrect orbit, which resulted in an investigation by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Blue Origin has been developing the New Glenn rocket for nearly a decade with the aim of competing in the heavy launch market dominated by Musk’s SpaceX, whose Falcon and Starship vehicles currently lead commercial and government missions in the US.

The competing businessman reacted to what happened, saying that he deeply regrets the explosion during the test. “I’m sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly,” commented Elon Musk in a post on X, referring to the company Blue Origin.