Blue Origin’s New Glenn mega-rocket just exploded during testing at a launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to live streams from NASASpaceFlight.com and SpaceFlight Now. Blue Origin later confirmed the explosion.
Jeff Bezos’ space company was performing a static fire test ahead of an anticipated fourth launch of the new rocket in the coming weeks, which was supposed to carry Amazon Leo internet satellites to space. That means the rocket was likely fully fueled, contributing to what is one of the largest rocket explosions in U.S. history and the worst failure in Blue Origin’s existence.
Blue Origin said in an X post Thursday evening that “[a]ll personnel have been accounted for,” and Bezos wrote that they were “safe.” The company didn’t say what went wrong, only that an “anomaly” occurred.
“It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it,” Bezos wrote.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a post late Thursday that the agency will “work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.”
In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told TechCrunch it was aware of the explosion and said there was “no impact to air traffic.” NASA and the Space Force did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The explosion likely means Blue Origin will have to pause the New Glenn rocket program for an extended period of time while it works through what went wrong. Blue Origin had been planning to attempt as many as 12 launches of New Glenn this year, after the company spent around a decade developing it in an attempt to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The company is also supposed to help power NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon, with the agency highlighting Blue Origin’s expected role in that program earlier this week. Isaacman said Thursday that NASA will “provide any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available.”
Blue Origin has been aiming to launch national security missions for the Pentagon as well.
“Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard,” Elon Musk wrote on X shortly after the explosion. “I hope you recover quickly.”
The explosion comes just a few weeks after Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket flew for the third time ever. That mission suffered its own failure when the New Glenn upper stage failed to put an AST SpaceMobile satellite into orbit, causing a total loss of the mission. Just last week, the FAA cleared New Glenn to fly again after Blue Origin completed an investigation into the cause of the failure.
A very new, late rocket
Blue Origin has spent years developing New Glenn while it used its New Shepard program to test out smaller-scale sub-orbital rockets. While New Shepard has ferried a fairly regular cadence of wealthy people and celebrities (along with some science missions) to the edge of space, Blue Origin was constantly working in the background to develop a rocket that could put real commercial payloads like large satellites into orbit.
That work took a long time — longer than Blue Origin had anticipated — but finally came to a head in January 2025, when the company flew New Glenn for the first time.
New Glenn appeared to be a fairly successful rocket right off the bat. It reached orbit during that first flight, though the booster stage exploded before Blue Origin could attempt to land it on a drone ship in the ocean.
Blue Origin was even more successful with New Glenn’s second flight, though, in November 2025. During that mission the company launched twin spacecraft to Mars for NASA. Blue Origin also landed its first booster stage during New Glenn’s second mission.
That allowed the company to re-fly the booster on New Glenn’s third mission, showing not only the ability to recover the first stage, but refurbish it for re-use — a critical step in reducing the overall cost of operating a launch business.
The re-used rocket booster had no problems flying again, and even landed a second time on one of Blue Origin’s drone ships, during New Glenn’s third mission in April 2026. But the company experienced a cryogenic failure in the upper stage during mission three, which led to the loss of the satellite.
This upcoming fourth mission was supposed to be the first of 24 launches that Amazon has contracted Blue Origin for. Amazon is currently building out a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network, which it calls Leo. On Wednesday, Amazon touted its ability to rely on Blue Origin to build the network, calling New Glenn a “reusable, heavy-lift rocket.”
Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch late Thursday that no Leo satellites were on board for this test.
Late Thursday, Congressman Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), who represents the district that is home to Cape Canaveral, wrote on X that he had spoken with NASA administrator Jared Isaacman about the explosion.
“I am grateful there were no reported injuries and thankful for the first responders, engineers, and launch crews who acted quickly. Praying for Florida’s Space Coast and everyone involved,” he said.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP South-East Zonal Working Committee has called on the National Security Adviser, the Department of State Services, DSS, the Inspector-General of Police and other security agencies to investigate the conduct of security agencies in the region, particularly the Commissioner of Police in Ebonyi State.
The demand was contained in a statement issued by the National Vice Chairman, South-East Zone, Mike Ahumibe.
The opposition party accused the Ebonyi State Commissioner of Police of failing to act proactively despite what it described as several petitions by opposition parties, saying his conduct left much to be desired of a professional police officer.
“The committee seriously implores the office of the National Security Adviser, Director of the Department of State Services, all security agencies and indeed the Inspector-General of Police to show a special interest in the activities of our security agencies in the South-East and conduct a check on the Commissioner of Police in Ebonyi State.”
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The party added that, “The committee concluded that our party’s chances in the 2027 elections can be described as a ‘low hanging fruit’ that only requires a strategic stretching out of hands,” it said.
According to the PDP, opposition parties should be allowed to test their popularity before voters without intimidation, manipulation or interference.
It also hailed the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, for what it described as his dynamic leadership and contributions to the PDP.
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and the African Democratic Congress, ADC, have asked the Federal High Court in Abuja for permission to amend their suit challenging President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The plaintiffs are seeking to disqualify Tinubu and the APC from participating in the election over an allegation that a forged National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, discharge certificate was submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, also has INEC as the third defendant.
In a motion filed before Justice Inyang Ekwo, Atiku and the ADC asked the court to grant them leave to amend their originating summons and deem the amended processes as properly filed.
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They said the amendment became necessary after they discovered errors in the nomenclature of some INEC forms attached to their affidavit, which were referred to as Form CF001 instead of Form EC9A.
The plaintiffs also said they needed to set out the particulars of the alleged fraud more specifically, include Atiku’s written deposition and attach clearer copies of exhibits referred to in the suit.
Tinubu and the APC, however, have asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that it is incompetent and that the plaintiffs lack the legal standing to institute it.
In a joint counter-affidavit filed on September 9, the President and APC denied submitting any forged certificate to INEC for either the 2023 or 2027 presidential elections.
They also said they did not submit Form CF001 to INEC for either election as alleged by the plaintiffs, adding that the NYSC had never denied issuing a discharge certificate to Tinubu after his service year.
In their written address, the defendants argued that allegations of forgery, being criminal, must be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Their counsel, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, argued that evidence from the institution alleged to have issued the disputed certificate would be required to establish that it was forged.
Olujinmi said Atiku and the ADC had not produced any evidence from the NYSC disclaiming the issuance of the discharge certificate to Tinubu.
He therefore urged the court to dismiss the suit, describing it as incompetent and lacking a proper basis for the plaintiffs’ claims.
The court has fixed September 28 for hearing in the case.
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