Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle, designed for heavy loads, exploded during a propulsion system test in Florida, NASA's Spaceflight program reported.
A video posted to the portal's YouTube channel shows a bright light. The incident occurred around 9:00 p.m. local time (4:00 a.m. Bulgarian time today).
Blue Origin confirmed to X that an “anomaly“occurred during the test and no company employees were injured.
In January 2025, Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, completed the first launch of the New Glenn launch vehicle, a potential competitor to Musk's SpaceX rockets.
After the explosion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk noted the difficulty of developing rockets.
"It's a shame. Rockets are complicated," he said of footage of the explosion at X. Musk expressed hope that Blue Origin would "recover quickly" from the incident.