BREAKING: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Rocket Explodes in Spectacular Fireball Over Florida
Jeff Bezos just had a very bad night in Florida. A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded Thursday evening during a test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36, sending a massive orange fireball into the sky and shaking homes across nearby Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral. The company confirmed no personnel were injured, calling the incident an “anomaly” while promising updates as the investigation unfolds.
The explosion is the latest in a string of setbacks for Bezos’ aerospace company. The New Glenn rocket had already been grounded earlier this year after the FAA required Blue Origin to investigate a separate engine incident. Thursday’s fireball will almost certainly trigger yet another federal review, further delaying a program that has faced repeated scrutiny.
The timing is particularly brutal. Just days before the explosion, NASA announced it had selected Blue Origin over Elon Musk’s SpaceX to lead the first of three uncrewed lunar missions this year, part of a $20 billion moon base construction initiative.
Both companies are also locked in competition to provide crew landers for the Artemis program, including the planned 2028 return of astronauts to the lunar surface.
Musk, never one to stay quiet, offered a characteristically loaded response on X. “Most unfortunate,” he wrote. “Rockets are hard.” Coming from a man whose own company won the contract Blue Origin is racing to catch up to, the sympathy rang hollow.