Video captured from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida Thursday evening appears to show a rocket exploding on its launch pad.
“All personnel are accounted for and safe,” Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder, said in a separate X post. “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.”
The company announced New Glenn’s plans to return to flight earlier this week after a failure during the rocket’s third flight on April 19 prompted a Federal Aviation Administration investigation. During the April mission, the rocket’s first stage booster landed successfully on a seafaring barge, but the upper portion, or second stage, of the rocket didn’t manage to deliver its payload — AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite — to a safe orbit, CNN reported.
New Glenn’s fourth mission was intended to carry 48 satellites to join Amazon Leo’s broadband constellation.