{"id":288868,"date":"2026-05-29T13:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/288868\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:12:11","slug":"bezos-owned-rocket-explodes-in-florida-deals-blow-to-blue-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/288868\/","title":{"rendered":"Bezos-owned rocket explodes in Florida, deals blow to Blue Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The night sky over Florida briefly blazed orange<\/a> as a spectacular blaze swept the Atlantic Coast following an explosion of a rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The striking sight was the result of the latest setback for the rocket company, which had just completed an investigation into a failure that occurred when its towering New Glenn rocket last flew in April<\/a>. The extent of the damage resulting from the explosion \u2013 not to mention, what caused it \u2013 is yet to be determined.<\/p>\n

But the incident will no doubt deal a blow to not only Blue Origin’s ambitions<\/a> of gaining ground on commercial spaceflight competitor SpaceX<\/a>, but also to NASA’s ambitions of establishing a foothold on the moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NASA releases thousands more Artemis II photos. Here are the best.<\/p>\n

1 of 15<\/p>\n

NASA released thousands of new photos taken during the Artemis II mission around the moon. The astronauts selected for the mission thoroughly documented the 10-day voyage, which included an April 6 lunar flyby as they traveled more than a quarter-million miles from Earth.<\/p>\n

(Provided by NASA)<\/p>\n

Here’s everything we know so far about the explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn.<\/p>\n

Does Jeff Bezos own Blue Origin?<\/p>\n

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, founded the private space<\/a> technology company Blue Origin in 2000.<\/p>\n

Headquartered in Washington state, Blue Origin made a name for itself with its suborbital human spaceflights using its New Shepard spacecraft from West Texas. Those missions, several of which\u00a0featured celebrities<\/a>\u00a0like musician Katy Perry and actor William Shatner, have been\u00a0paused for at least two years<\/a> while Blue Origin focuses on its lunar program.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin rocket explosion: Why did it happen?<\/p>\n

Blue Origin’s towering New Glenn rocket<\/a> was seen exploding in a blazing fireball in video that spread widely on social media beginning after 9 p.m. ET Thursday, May 28.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin, which referred to the explosion as an “anomaly<\/a>,” said it occurred during a hot fire test as the company was preparing the rocket for an upcoming launch. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

Bezos added in a post<\/a> of his own that Blue Origin would look into what caused the explosion, assess damage and “rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying.”<\/p>\n

He added: “It’s worth it.”<\/p>\n

Where did the explosion occur?<\/p>\n

The New Glenn rocket exploded on Launch Complex 36, a site Blue Origin invested $1 billion to rebuild at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, not far from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

What is a hot fire test?<\/p>\n

A hot fire test is a preflight test that involved firing up a rocket while it’s securely held in place on the ground at the launch pad. The test allows engineers to verify that a rocket’s propulsion system is working as intended before an actual launch.<\/p>\n

Video shows moment Blue Origin rocket explodesWhat is the New Glenn rocket?<\/p>\n

Named in honor of NASA astronaut\u00a0John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth,\u00a0New Glenn<\/a>\u00a0is a powerful two-stage heavy-lift launch vehicle manufactured by Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin’s\u00a0New Glenn rocket stands at 322 feet tall<\/a>, making it comparable in size to NASA’s\u00a0Space Launch System<\/a>\u00a0(SLS) developed for\u00a0the Artemis moon campaign<\/a>. SpaceX’s Starship, though, which is\u00a0approximately 400 feet tall<\/a>, is still regarded as the largest rocket in the world.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin launches New Glenn rocket. See photos of Florida liftoff<\/p>\n

1 of 10<\/p>\n

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket is prepared April 18 for launch at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for its third launch. The giant rocket carried the AST SpaceMobile\u2019s BlueBird 7satellite into low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

(Joe Skipper\/Reuters)New Glenn was due to launch with Amazon satellites<\/p>\n

Blue Origin was preparing the rocket for its fourth launch since its January 2025 debut from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.<\/p>\n

This time around, New Glenn was due to deliver to low-Earth orbit 48 more Amazon Leo satellites<\/a>. Amazon has so far deployed more than 300<\/a> of about 3,200 planned satellites into a constellation envisioned to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink<\/a> broadband network, which has more than 10,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

While Amazon has relied on a variety of launch service providers to take its satellites to space \u2013 including SpaceX \u2013 Bezos’ Blue Origin has yet to be among them. In fact, the next Amazon Leo mission the 12th satellite delivery overall since April 2025 is scheduled for May 29 using the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear if the Blue Origin explosion would delay that mission, also due to launch at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with a launch window opening<\/a> at 7:33 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin completes ‘mishap’ investigation after last New Glenn launch<\/p>\n

The explosion is the latest setback for the New Glenn rocket after Blue Origin recently completed a “mishap” investigation<\/a> into a failure that occurred during its most recent April 19 mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Blue Origin, the launch hit a few key milestones for the company: A New Glenn first-stage booster was successfully reused for the first time, and also managed to land on a barge offshore near Florida so that Blue Origin could retrieve it for another launch.<\/p>\n

But the second-stage of New Glenn that flew in orbit was unable to deliver its payload of broadband network satellites for cellular broadband service provider AST SpaceMobile to a high enough orbit. As a result, the satellites had to be de-orbited.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, required an investigation into the failure that temporarily grounded New Glenn.<\/p>\n

In its final report, accepted May 22 by the FAA, Blue Origin identified a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line as the source of the failure, as it prevented the upper stage from generating enough thrust in orbit. The company further identified “nine corrective action,” according to the FAA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin competes with SpaceX to develop lunar lander\"An<\/p>\n

An artist’s illustration depicts Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 human lunar lander on the surface of the moon.<\/p>\n

The development comes as Blue Origin is developing its Blue Moon lunar lander to take astronauts to the surface of the moon under NASA’s Artemis program.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin is competing with SpaceX, which is racing to have a\u00a0configuration of its Starship vehicle<\/a>, known as the Human Landing System, ready in time for a targeted human surface mission in 2028, now known as Artemis IV.\u00a0NASA’s revamped lunar program<\/a>\u00a0also\u00a0includes a new mission that involves Artemis III astronauts<\/a> aboard an Orion capsule meeting and docking in 2027 in Earth orbit with one or both of those landers.<\/p>\n

New Glenn would be crucial in sending the Mark 2 variant of the Blue Moon lander on its way to the moon, where it would rendezvous with astronauts in lunar orbit to take them down.<\/p>\n

Billionaire entrepreneur\u00a0Elon Musk<\/a>, who founded SpaceX in 2002, sympathized with Blue Origin’s setback, calling it in a post on X<\/a> “most unfortunate.”<\/p>\n

Could Blue Origin explosion hinder NASA’s Artemis moon missions?<\/p>\n

The explosion occurred days after NASA also announced<\/a> that Blue Origin was contracted to use the New Glenn rocket to launch an uncrewed variant of its lunar lander to the moon later in 2026. The Mark 1 lander would have been the first of many robotic landers<\/a> in the years ahead meant to reach the moon’s surface as NASA looks to construct a moon base where astronauts can live and work longterm.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin was additionally awarded a contract worth up to $468 million to transport two commercial rovers to the moon using its New Glenn rocket.<\/p>\n

But the timeline for those missions could be in doubt \u2013 a sobering possibility NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman<\/a> acknowledged in a post<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n

“We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets,” Isaacman said in the post. “We will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available.”<\/p>\n

Contributing: Rick Neale<\/a>, FLORIDA TODAY<\/p>\n

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket explosion in Florida, what we know so far<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The night sky over Florida briefly blazed orange as a spectacular blaze swept the Atlantic Coast following an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13372,28,30,29,8372,11969],"class_list":["post-288868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-blue-origin","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-nasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}