Blue Origin still doesn’t know why its New Glenn rocket blew up last month
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is doubling down on using its New Glenn mega-rocket again this year after last month’s explosion. But the company
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is doubling down on using its New Glenn mega-rocket again this year after last month’s explosion. But the company still doesn’t know why that explosion happened in the first place. In his most detailed public statement about the explosion yet, CEO Dave Limp wrote on Blue Origin’s website on Tuesday that his company is still trying to “identify and correct the root cause” of the explosion. “Early analysis points to the aft section of the first stage” of the rocket, Limp wrote, saying the company is pulling on “extensive data from multiple camera angles and sensors.” After spending more than a decade to slowly and deliberately develop New Glenn, Blue Origin had been moving quickly with the new rocket.
Its first launch was in January 2025, and New Glenn was preparing to fly for the fourth time when it exploded during testing on May 28 this year. (Nobody was hurt in the explosion.) Blue Origin wants to return the rocket to flight as quickly as it can because the company has become one of the central players in NASA’s push to return humans to the moon before President Trump leaves office. To do so, Blue Origin will not only need to determine and fix what caused the explosion last month, but it will also need to rebuild the company’s launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as it is currently the company’s only launchpad that can support the massive rocket.
In his post, Limp praised Blue Origin’s employees for making quick progress on this front. The company lost a lightning tower in the explosion, as well as the large piece of equipment that moves New Glenn to the launchpad and stands it up (known as the transporter-erector). Nearby buildings on the site were damaged in the blast, too. Still, Limp wrote that “we caught a lot of breaks, too, and intend to make the most of them.” Some of those breaks include the fact that the on-site water tower, gas tanks, and rocket integration facility are “in good shape.” Limp shared more details about how Blue Origin will change its current launch complex in Cape Canaveral.
The company is doing away with the transporter-erector idea and will instead use a massive crane to stand New Glenn up on the launchpad before flights. Besides allowing Blue Origin to return to flight sooner than expected, this approach would increase New Glenn’s flight cadence, according to Limp. Blue Origin was planning as many as 12 launches this year before the May explosion.
The BriefWire