On Thursday evening, May 28, 2026, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a static fire (engine-firing) test on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Key Details:
- The explosion occurred around 9:00 PM local time during a routine hot-fire test ahead of a planned satellite launch (no satellites were on board).
- It created a large fireball that lit up the sky orange, shook nearby
- homes, and caused damage to the launch pad infrastructure (including a lightning tower).
- No injuries were reported — all personnel were accounted for and safe.
- Blue Origin described it as an “anomaly.” Jeff Bezos posted: “All personnel are accounted for and safe. 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.”
This is a significant setback for Blue Origin’s New Glenn program, their heavy-lift rocket designed to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon and Starship vehicles. The rocket was intended for missions including Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites.
Space development is inherently risky and iterative — explosions during testing (especially static fires) aren’t unheard of in the industry (SpaceX had several early Starship and Falcon incidents too). Blue Origin will investigate and likely iterate from here.