The SkySat satellite image at left shows Blue Origin’s launch pad in Florida on May 20, before the New Glenn rocket explosion. The satellite image at right shows the pad on May 31, three days after the blast. Click on the image for a larger version. (Credit: Planet Labs PBC)
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture aims to repair the damage done last week by a launch-pad rocket explosion and return to flight before the end of the year, the company’s CEO says.
In a post to X, CEO Dave Limp laid out a schedule that was more optimistic than what was expected immediately after last Thursday’s fiery destruction of a New Glenn rocket during a static-fire test. CNBC quoted NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman as saying that it would “take some serious time” to restore Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
In his post, Limp said he had “a bit of good news” to share after inspecting the pad and the complex’s integration facility.
“The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape,” he said. “This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’ and the three GS-2s [upper stages] that were onsite in the integration facility also look good.”
Limp said the pad would be rebuilt to accommodate the current 7×2 New Glenn configuration, which offers a seven-engine first stage and a two-engine upper stage, rather than immediately transitioning to the next-generation configuration with nine engines on the first stage and four on the upper stage.
“Rate manufacturing of 7×2 is going well, and we’re going to continue that at pace as planned and store the stages for use,” he said. “In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop [concept of operations], and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector.
“We will fly again before the end of the year,” Limp wrote. Then he signed off with Blue Origin’s motto, “Gradatim Ferociter,” which is Latin for “Step by Step, Ferociously.”
If New Glenn returns to flight this year, that would be relatively good news for NASA and Blue Origin’s other customers. NASA had tapped New Glenn and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to deliver a set of payloads to the moon this fall, and to send the space agency’s VIPER rover to the moon’s south polar region in 2027.
A crew-capable version of the Blue Moon lander was slated to have its first flight test in low Earth orbit as early as next year during NASA’s Artemis 3 mission. And just this month, NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract worth up to $468 million to deliver two lunar terrain vehicles, or LTVs, to the moon in the 2028 time frame. All those opportunities depend on having New Glenn and its launch pad back in operation.
New Glenn also figures prominently in the plans of another company founded by Bezos: Amazon. Blue Origin, a private venture that’s separate from publicly traded Amazon, was due to launch 48 satellites for the Amazon Leo broadband internet constellation as early as this week. The rocket that exploded — nicknamed “No, It’s Necessary” — was being tested in preparation for taking on that task.
Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Amazon Leo, told his team in an internal memo obtained by Business Insider that it was still too early to speculate on the cause of the explosion or its potential effects.
“I’ve been in this business for a long time and it’s worth saying: Spaceflight is hard, and setbacks happen,” he wrote in the memo.
Amazon has reserved scores of launches with other providers, including United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and SpaceX — and the satellites that were earmarked to ride on New Glenn can be shifted to those other companies’ rockets. United Launch Alliance delivered 29 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit with an Atlas 5 launch last Friday, boosting the constellation’s count to 331.
“New Glenn is just one vehicle in our lineup,” Badyal wrote. “Our mission hasn’t changed, our commitment to our customers and delivering service hasn’t changed.”
Correction for 8 a.m. PT June 3: We’ve corrected this report to explain that Blue Origin’s 7×2 and 9×4 rocket configurations refer to the number of engines rather than the size of their fairings.
For an interactive look at Blue Origin’s Launch Complex 36 before and after the New Glenn explosion, check out this presentation of Planet Labs imagery on SpaceFromSpace.com, and be sure to use the “Transparency” slider to compare the before-and-after views.
