A Blue Origin rocket exploded in a fireball during a late-night launchpad test at Cape Canaveral in Florida, shaking nearby homes and briefly painting the sky orange.
Officials said no one was injured and that there was no threat to the public following the “anomaly” on Thursday night. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos admitted it was a “very rough day.”
Bezos said it was too early to know the cause of the explosion but insisted “we’re already working to find it.”
“We’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it,” he added.
Footage from the site showed flames climbing the sides of the rocket before a huge explosion engulfed the launch area.
The 97-metre rocket, named New Glenn after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, was set to blast off next week with internet satellites that are part of the Amazon Leo constellation.
The incident is a huge setback in the company’s ambitions to narrow the gap with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Earlier this week, NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a pair of moon buggies in the next few years as part of the Artemis programme.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement: “Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult.”
He added that the space agency would “support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.”
Responding to a video of the explosion on X, Musk said: “Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was aware of the incident but insisted the launchpad test was “not within the scope” of its licensed activities. It added that there was no impact to air traffic.
The incident comes just a few weeks after the New Glenn rocket, which made its debut in 2025, was grounded after it left a satellite in the wrong orbit because of engine failure.
