Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded in a pre-launch test at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, May 28, 2026.
The rocket erupted into a giant fireball that engulfed the launch pad at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 UTC) as the engines ignited for a pre-launch test.
New Glenn had scheduled to launch a batch of satellites for another Bezos project, Amazon Leo, as early as Thursday, June 4.
Jeff Bezos took to social media and shared a post, writing, “All personnel are accounted for and safe. 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.”
Blue Origin, last week on May 22, received a go-ahead from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume launches of its New Glenn rocket.
During the New Glenn 3 (NG-3) mission, the rocket encountered an in-flight malfunction with its upper stage.
It led to escape by placing AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird-7 satellite in the right orbit.
The Amazon Leo satellites have not been moved to the launch site from their payload processing facility to be installed on the rocket.
This was expected to be the first of 24 launches that Amazon Leo slated on New Glenn rockets.
The incident is seen as a major setback to NASA’s plans to build a lunar base and return humans back to the moon in the coming two years.
For the unversed, Artemis III, targeted for 2027, is slated to test Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander and SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS).
The tests will decide which of the two will bring the Artemis IV crew from Orion capsule to the surface of the moon.
