It’s a very expensive setback when your $100 million rocket goes up in a massive fireball. Blue Origin was conducting a test on one of its New Glenn rockets at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday night when it “experienced an anomaly.” That’s basically code for “turned into a big fireball.”
Fortunately there were no injuries. “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it,” said Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos shortly after. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.” Spaceflight Now and NASA Spaceflight captured the explosion, including the delayed sound, on their nearby cameras.