“All personnel are safe”, American businessman, Jeff Bezos, made known following the explosion of a Blue Origin rocket during test in Florida State, United States (US).
Plans by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to build a lunar base and return humans to the moon in the next two (2) years, were plunged into jeopardy following the explosion of a New Glenn rocket from Blue Origin, a Company owned by Bezos, during test in Florida.
An enormous fireball engulfed and destroyed the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center just seconds after the start of the scheduled ‘hotfire’ test, and an orange sky was seen in Fort Pierce, a city on the East Coast of Florida.
That is the kind of rocket that the Bezos-owned Company plans to use to launch Landers to the moon for NASA; and it encompasses the Landers that will take astronauts to the outermost solid layer of the moon.
Founder of Blue Origin, Bezos, said via X, “it’s too early to know the root cause”, however, investigation has commenced to find the cause of the explosion.
NASA, the United States (US) government agency responsible for civil space exploration, aeronautics research, and space science, announced on Tuesday, Blue Origin had clinched the contract to launch the first of three planned missions this year (2026) to start the construction of its moon base worth $20bn.
Blue Origin is directly competing with SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, to provide a lunar lander for the Artemis IV mission planned for 2028; a mission that will see astronauts land on the Moon for the first time since 1972.
Jeff Bezos said: “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.”
Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, posted on X, that, NASA is working towards making the “near impossible to become possible”.
He said, the “next” move for humans is to “inevitably go to Mars”.
Shockwaves from the rocket explosion were felt along the stretch of Florida’s Atlantic Ocean seaboard known as the space coast, and according to reports, residents in South Carolina, hundreds of miles North, saw a shine in the sky.
Isaacman further posted: “We are building the Moon Base for all we will learn, the innovation that will improve life on Earth, the inspiration for the next generation of explorers, and to master the skills needed for where we will inevitably go next…Mars.”
In his reaction to the New Glenn rocket explosion on X, the NASA Administrator said: “NASA is aware of the anomaly that occurred tonight at Launch Complex 36 involving Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult. We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.
“We will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available.”
Photo: Fire and smoke rise from the launch pad of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket as it explodes. Houses nearby were shaken by the explosion | Courtney Blair/Reuters
