GoKawiilBlue Origin’s New Glenn mega-rocket just exploded during testing at a launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to live streams from NASASpaceFlight.com and SpaceFlight Now. Blue Origin later confirmed the explosion.
Jeff Bezos’ space company was performing a static fire test ahead of an anticipated fourth launch of the new rocket in the coming weeks, which was supposed to carry Amazon Leo internet satellites to space. That means the rocket was likely fully fueled, contributing to what is one of the largest rocket explosions in U.S. history and the worst failure in Blue Origin’s existence.
Blue Origin said in an X post Thursday evening that “[a]ll personnel have been accounted for,” and Bezos wrote that they were “safe.” The company didn’t say what went wrong, only that an “anomaly” occurred.
“It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s 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 near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.”
In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told TechCrunch it was aware of the explosion and said there was “no impact to air traffic.” NASA and the Space Force did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Here's our video of the explosion at Launch Complex 36. It happened about 9 pm ET (0100 UTC) as Blue Origin was beginning a static fire test of its New Glenn rocket.
Watch live views: https://t.co/tm2wZQmAVD pic.twitter.com/PmbgQC6Qmq — Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) May 29, 2026
The explosion likely means Blue Origin will have to pause the New Glenn rocket program for an extended period of time while it works through what went wrong. Blue Origin had been planning to attempt as many as 12 launches of New Glenn this year, after the company spent around a decade developing it in an attempt to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
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