Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’s company ‘Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on the launch pad during testing in Florida. Footage showed a large fireball forming as the rocket exploded.
Accident occurred during hotfire test
Blue Origin reported that a hotfire test was being conducted around 9:00 PM at Cape Canaveral, Florida. During this test, a malfunction occurred in the rocket and this accident happened. This test was being conducted in preparation for an upcoming launch in the coming days.
A hot fire test is an extremely necessary process to check a rocket’s engine capability before sending it into space. In this, the rocket is firmly clamped to the ground on the launch pad itself with the help of clamps. Then its engines are turned on at full power for a specified time.
The New Glenn rocket was undergoing a hotfire test at Cape Canaveral, Florida around 9:00 PM at night.
Jeff Bezos said – All employees are safe, will try again
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said that all employees are safe in the accident. We have started investigating the cause of the accident. Today was a very difficult day, but whatever needs to be rebuilt, we will rebuild it and return to flight.
No danger to public; US Space Force engaged in investigation
According to Brevard County Emergency Management, there is no danger to the general public from this explosion that occurred on the launch pad. The US Space Force has informed that emergency responders are present at the incident site. Along with this, officials are working together with Blue Origin to evaluate available data and determine the exact cause of this anomaly.
NASA said – Spaceflight is not easy, will support full investigation
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that spaceflight is unforgiving and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is an extraordinarily difficult task.
We will work together with our partners to support a full investigation of this anomaly, assess the impacts on upcoming missions, and return to rocket launching.
New rocket was also grounded last month
This is the second major problem for Blue Origin in recent times. Just last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had ordered an investigation into an incident related to a failed satellite launch, following which the company’s ‘New Glenn’ was grounded.
Major Success Achieved in November
Before these recent difficulties, the space company had successfully launched a ‘New Glenn’ rocket from Florida last November. During that mission, the company achieved success in landing its reusable booster for the first time.
Blue Origin has spent nearly a decade and billions of dollars developing this New Glenn rocket. It is a rocket as tall as a 29-story building, whose first stage can be reused. That is, it is a reusable rocket. It has been designed to compete with Elon Musk’s Falcon rockets and the powerful Starship.
This is a rocket developed by Jeff Bezos’ space company ‘Blue Origin’. Its height is approximately equivalent to a 29-story building.
Preparation to challenge Musk’s ‘Starlink’
The interesting thing is that just one day before this incident, that is on Wednesday, Blue Origin had announced that it was preparing to send Amazon’s 48 ‘LEO’ satellites to low-Earth orbit through the New Glenn rocket.
Amazon wants to create a broadband internet network worldwide with the help of these satellites, which will directly compete with Elon Musk’s ‘Starlink’ network. However, the company has not yet set any date for this launch.
After the video of the rocket explosion surfaced, Elon Musk wrote on X- “Extremely unfortunate. Building and operating rockets is truly a difficult task.”
