On May 28, 2026, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded in a fiery ball during a hot-fire test at the company's Florida launch site. CEO Dave Limp said, "We continue to actively investigate the cause," and noted that the company has not yet declared a final cause.
The static-fire test, which involves igniting the rocket's engines while it is held down on the pad, is a standard pre-launch procedure. The explosion destroyed the vehicle and caused significant damage to the launch infrastructure, leading to the decision to adopt a new pad design.
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The company does not plan to rebuild the same launchpad design. That new setup is a 'horizontal/vertical hybrid' launch configuration, according to Limp. In a post on X, Limp noted that the new pad design "has the added benefit of increasing our flight cadence as well."
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said: "We take our responsibility as a launch provider very seriously, and we are committed to returning to flight with the reliability our mission demands." That timeline depends on completing the investigation and the new launchpad construction. By adopting that design now, Blue Origin will use existing infrastructure instead of rebuilding the same pad.
Amazon and AST SpaceMobile, among others, depend on Blue Origin to carry their internet satellites to space. The explosion in May happened only days before Blue Origin planned to launch a batch of Amazon's Leo satellites.
NASA is also a critical partner. The agency selected Blue Origin to send an uncrewed Blue Moon lander into orbit on New Glenn later this year under the Artemis program. On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that Blue Origin has made "great progress" on recovery, adding that New Glenn remains the agency's "plan A" for launching the cargo lander.
"We've got time beyond that point into 2027 before we're getting nervous," Isaacman said. He said the agency "does not sit on our hands and wait for hardware to show up," so it has considered alternative providers if necessary. "Plan A was always New Glenn and plan A is looking a lot better today than it was a few weeks ago, just based on the progress that the Blue Origin team is making," he said.
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