A New Glenn rocket made by private spaceflight firm Blue Origin has exploded on its launch pad in Florida during a test last night, 28 May 2026.
A video released of the explosion shows the New Glenn bursting into flames, with an enormous fireball engulfing the rocket.
It's understood that no-one was injured in the incident.
In a statement posted on the company's X account, Blue Origin said: "We experienced an anomaly during today's hotfire test. All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more."
A 'hotfire' test is the firing up of the rocket's engine while it's still tethered to ground, in order to test that the rocket's systems are working correctly.
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The explosion took place at around 9pm local time at Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA.
Jeff Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in September 2000, took to the social media platform X to say: "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."
The US Space Force reported that its responders were at the scene of the explosion and working with Blue Origin engineers to determine what caused the explosion.
The explosion occurred during a test ahead of an upcoming launch.
In recent years, NASA has turned to private companies such as Blue Origin and SpaceX to provide launch and landing capabilities for missions to the Moon via its Artemis programmes.
On 26 May 2026, NASA revealed Blue Origin had been awarded a contract to launch the first of three missions to begin construction of its Moon Base on the lunar surface, due to take place later in 2026.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on X: "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."
