A rocket built by the Jeff Bezos-owned space company Blue Origin blew up on the launchpad in Florida on Thursday night.
The explosion occurred during a test being conducted in advance of an upcoming launch.
“We experienced an anomaly during today’s hotfire test,” Blue Origin reported on social media. “All personnel have been accounted for.”
The fireball caused considerable damage to the launchpad and surrounding equipment.
The rocket was a New Glenn, named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth. It was to carry 48 satellites for Amazon’s internet constellation, Leo, an acronym for low-Earth orbit. Leo is a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink network.
The failure will also affect NASA’s moon plans. Blue Origin is one of two companies — SpaceX is the other — that NASA has hired to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon. That plan depends on New Glenn rockets to get that lander to the moon.
A smaller Blue Origin robotic lunar lander, known as Blue Moon Mark 1, was scheduled to launch later this year on a New Glenn rocket. On Tuesday, NASA also announced that it had awarded contracts to Blue Origin for two New Glenn rockets to take rovers to the moon in 2028 for astronauts to drive during the Artemis IV and Artemis V missions.
Kenneth Chang, a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth.
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