NEW: Blue Origin rocket explodes on launch pad in Florida

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Breaking news. We just told you about a Blue Origin rocket exploding. This is from Blue Origin on X saying, "We experienced an anomaly during today's hot fire test. All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more and we told you we were going to work on getting that video. We have it into our newsroom now. This is it right here. You can see it on the launchpad there. and a big plume of smoke and fire just erupting. Our partners at Fox 35 in Orlando are live with this coverage. Let's tune in right now >> for them to get everything rebuilt there. How long could it be before Blue Origin can get their launch pad back up and running?

[00:00:46]>> Yeah, so the big question is what caused this? And obviously they're going to be investigating that for uh the coming weeks or months. I know some other uh people space experts that have been kind of posting on social media is that this is could be anywhere from a 6 to 12 month delay of the New Glenn program which is pretty hard when just this week NASA announced all their moonbased plans for phase one and New Glenn was going to be a big part of that. Blue Origin was preparing to launch their MK1 lander for a test flight to the moon later this year. Um so this is going to be a big impact to what the the next year of New Glenn is going to look like. So, Zach, tell us what would be the next step in this.

[00:01:22]>> Yeah, next step will be waiting for sunrise, getting their crews out there once they've maintained uh the fires, safet. Obviously, this was a fully fueled vehicle. That's why we got such a, you know, sad to say, incredible explosion. Um, but ultimately, this was a fully fueled vehicle that's capable of carrying very large payloads up into space and to the moon. So, they'll want to get out to the pad, start a multi-day inspection of where actually everything is standing. Uh and then they'll begin, you know, the rebuild plans on what that's going to take. Uh but like you said, this is likely going to be a many month rebuild before we see another New Glenn out of the pad. And then the question is, what testing do we see of New Glenn before they attempt to have another flight uh of the the New Glenn booster?

[00:02:02]>> All right, Zach Albert, thank you so much for being with us tonight. We really appreciate your expertise.

[00:02:08]>> Thanks for having me. Uh and good luck to Blue Origin Build Back Better.

[00:02:11]>> All right, we now want to get out to Fox 35's Esther Bower. So Esther, what can you tell us? You're not too far from where this happened, right?

[00:02:20]>> So I'm actually in Rock Ledge right now, which isn't too far from where this happened. And what has been striking is I have been hearing emergency crews in Rock Ledge, I'm thinking are heading to the Cape because this explosion, my social media feed, it is every single post, what people say looked like an atomic bomb. And actually, just to kind of level set how this hit me uh personally, I was sitting here just relaxing and my husband comes home much later than I do. So, he calls me. He says, "I'm on 95 South and I think I just saw something explode in the sky."

[00:02:53]Okay. What do you mean? The sky turned orange. It looked like the heavens opened up like an atomic bomb just went off. So, I'm listening to him talking about this again. This is on 95 South around the 195 Rock Ledge Vieira. So I start getting on social media looking was there an explosion in Rock Ledge and immediately everyone is saying why did the sky just turn orange? What was that?

[00:03:17]And then when you start seeing these pictures and the images of the massive explosion over at that launch complex 36. It was an unbelievable site and I agree with everything that Zach was just saying. This is an awful situation for Blue Origin first, but for NASA. I mean, we have been talking about time and time again, story after story, they are ramping up operations. We are in a space race. China could beat us to the moon.

[00:03:44]Blue Origin was one of the biggest companies that NASA is betting on to build their moon base to continue this Artemis program. And guys, we had just reported on the FAA had cleared them after this same rocket, the New Glenn, had another anomaly and they lost a payload that had grounded them for several weeks. And Blue Origin said that they had figured out the problem. Now, they were in this process of doing the static fire test to launch a new payload on a mission on the same rocket. So, I can only imagine what this team is feeling. But my biggest sigh of relief came when Blue Origin put out, "All personnel have been accounted for." I mean, ladies, you see that explosion, you see how wide reaching it is. And to know that the fire is still burning, but yet we're being told all of the people that were near that pad have been found.

[00:04:40]They are safe, you just breathe a sigh of relief. So, we did speak with one of our space sources moments after this happened, and he's seen tragedies, but he's told us he's never seen something like this. So, we do want you to listen in to what David Denult said.

[00:04:58]>> Um I I'm I've never seen anything quite like this. Uh I've seen, you know, the old videos, the old rockets blowing up, but this is more than spectacular. It looked like almost an atomic bomb as this mushroom cloud lifted off the ground and the fire is still blazing uh off the ground and now it's just across the sky is just orange and yellow as this flame continues to burn at the launch pad. Um and and that's kind of the replay that we've seen. Um uh and anytime you this this could be very this is very dangerous and you can imagine that's why we have these tests. Could you imagine if we had astronauts on board? I mean to know right now Blue Origin is saying all of their personnel are accounted for. What a sigh of relief. Just how do you feel?

[00:05:46]>> Well, I think I think that's a great sigh of relief. I mean, even though this happened, they were in a safety zone somewhere that protected them and and again that safety first of NASA safety first of all the contractors and and I applaud them for that and and having everyone safe >> from this it was horrific horrific blast. So, what are you thinking for Blue Origin? I mean, we just talked about they were just cleared after their new Glenn had the failure and now I need to confirm. Was this another New Glenn test?

[00:06:18]>> It was.

[00:06:19]>> So, and and it was a static fire type thing and that's why they go through that. It's it's a test >> and those things happen. U we've seen that over the years, but nothing, you know, I spent what my going all the way back to the early days of the Apollo program and um I've never seen anything like this in an explosion in in all my career covering the man space flight.

[00:06:47]>> What is your thoughts of how Blue Origin is going to be able uh to move forward?

[00:06:52]I mean, this is bad.

[00:06:56]>> It is. Um, you could also look at uh SpaceX and and their test rockets have have not always made it to where they wanted to be, exploded, come back. These are tests. We we're going to perfect these tests. So, one day we're going to say, "Okay, we already test to put a man in that vehicle." And that's what's going to have to happen. These this is going to happen in the space program.

[00:07:20]But, you know, you never expect it. No, nothing we expect. Um, losing three astronauts, Gryom, White, and Chiefy, on a simple test on a launchpad >> and they all perished in the fire inside a capsule.

[00:07:36]It's It was a test. We know the risks, but um, thank God we are able to pull through this, and I think Blue Origin will. They'll look at the wood disaster, fix it, put it back on the pad, and get ready for another test.

[00:07:51]Oh.

[00:07:54]Just unbelievable. Before we let you go, Esther, really quickly, you know, the layout there of all the different uh launch facilities and launch pads. Is launchpad 36 kind of isolated? I'm just wondering, is this going to impact any of the other companies like SpaceX, maybe ULA >> or even future crude missions? I mean, to the ISS, that is a great question.

[00:08:16]They do have space in between them.

[00:08:18]We're not actually covering launches from launch complex 36 as frequently.

[00:08:23]So, you know, thank the good Lord this wasn't 39 or one where we're constantly seeing crude missions. But great point and we really don't know. I don't think until this sun comes up where crews are able to get out there and really see how far this explosion spread or how much could have been damaged.

[00:08:44]>> Incredible. Yeah, Esther, thank you so much for coming off work and and helping us report on this story. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

[00:08:55]>> Absolutely.

[00:08:57]>> All right. And the explosion was so massive that it was actually seen on radar. Fox 35 Storm Team meteorologist Noah Bergrren joins us now.

[00:09:05]>> Yeah, Noah, you can still see the smoke from the fire on the radar right now, can't you?

[00:09:09]>> Yeah, that's right, Marisa and Lou.

[00:09:11]Actually, this is pretty wild to to see the rocket explosion on weather radar.

[00:09:15]We can use radar to detect smoke and other things. Now, I've got the radar presentation for you. Some new videos I've just gotten in and I want to give you size seismic graph perspective because we've got a lot of reports coming in of the ground that shook uh in Bard County from earlier. But here's the radar looping at about 9:00. There's the explosion. And if you didn't know any better, you'd think that's a rain shower. That's actually not. That's a mixture of debris and then the fireball that got sent because the winds today are from the southwest. You see right there, there's the explosion and then what looks like a shower is not a shower. This is just all debris and smoke and a fireball getting kicked out into the ocean. For perspective, there's pad 36. Here's 40. Uh so this is pretty far ways to the northeast of Cape Canaveral. Uh it was seen even further inland than Orlando. Uh this is from downtown Orlando. Look at this video here. How far away this is over almost an hour and a half drive from the Space Coast. And you can see the orange glow between those clouds that we had tonight from showers. This is from Cocoa Beach from Courtney. You can see the smoke here going out over the ocean. Now, a lot of car alarms I'm reading some of your messages on my social and a lot of people saying their car alarms and their Ring doorbells went off as if somebody was ringing their house or something.

[00:10:32]Well, about where it was felt in Central Florida. Well, first of all, we don't have a lot of seismic graphs to see how far the ground shook because we're not a part of the country or the world that gets earthquakes. So, we don't have a lot of that around. There are a lot of reports that the ground shook uh right after 9:00 through about 9:02 in northern Bvard County. Uh set off several people's doorbells and car alarms. Uh it was seen as far away as I can tell preliminarily from Lakeland, the orange glow in the sky. Now the nearest seismic graph we have is actually in CMI at Walt Disney World and only a very slight pickup was noted there from the seismic graph of the ground vibrating. Now the reason why it wasn't felt in Orlando or further inland is because the geology of our ground here in Florida. Think about it like taking a bowling ball and dropping it on memory foam mattress. A lot of that energy gets absorbed right close to the explosion. We're not like states in the Midwest or out in the plains where it'd be like dropping a bowling ball on a hardwood floor. You'd hear all throughout the house. So, while there was ground shaking, definitely we don't have a seismic graph in Cape Canaveral or near BVAR County. I've checked. Uh I'm certain the ground shook for a minute or two there after that explosion. Uh farther inland, no, you wouldn't have felt it, but definitely you could have heard it because a lot of people are saying they they heard something out walking the dog or something inland. So definitely you could have heard it farther inland. And again, that was from Courtney in Cocoa Beach. And then here was the view one more time. Lou Marisa, I think this is just wild. I mean, look how far away this is. I can't imagine seeing that not knowing what it was. But yeah, definitely. I'll give you the view one more time from the radar. There's pad 36 and the fireball picked up on weather radar. Thankfully, a lot of that debris looks like the wind kicked it out out over the ocean, guys.

[00:12:20]>> All right, Noah, thank you so much. Just this week, you may remember we told you that Blue Origin got the allclear to fly New Glenn rockets. This comes after an incident in April after an engine on the New Glenn rocket did not reach the right orbit. This rocket is critical for NASA because it will be used for future missions to the moon to help deliver different payloads. And we want to show you some more new video of that explosion. Take a look. This is from someone's Ring camera. A woman in Sunree says she was timing her son's laps in the pool when this happened. Keep an eye in the background here. You can see the sky light up. Wow. Right there from this explosion. And then the woman quickly gets her son out of the pool. Well, we continue to follow that breaking news on the Space Coast tonight. Blue Origin just confirmed that a massive explosion happened during a static test fire at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. And we are working to find out more about what exactly happened tonight. But Blue Origin says thankfully no one was hurt.

[00:13:21]And joining us live now to talk more about this explosion is retired astronaut Captain Winston Scott. Good evening, Captain.

[00:13:29]>> Hi. Good evening. How are you folks this evening?

[00:13:31]>> Oh, you know, we're just thinking about what's going on out there. This is incredible. I do want to read a a tweet from Blue Origin that was posted about 45 minutes ago, Captain. It says, "We experienced an anomaly during today's hot fire test. All personnel have been accounted for." So, can you tell us how rare is something like this?

[00:13:50]>> Well, we've gotten to a place now where we take these things for granted, but uh if you you you all are too young to remember, and so am I. In the early days of uh our American space program, there were many many explosions of a brand new rockets under development. So when these things happen now, they're so rare that we uh we and and we we should pay particular attention to them. But the reason we do tests like this is to determine whether or not the engines are ready to fly. And obviously in this case, they're not. We have a failure.

[00:14:21]It's a very serious failure. But uh again, it's it's better to have it happen under controlled conditions like this, a a planned test, than to have it later on in flight. So yeah, it's kind of rare. It's very serious. But uh I have no doubt that the Blue Origin will recover and uh they'll be ready for flight.

[00:14:41]>> Yeah, we know, Captain, that they were going to use this company and I believe this rocket to eventually send astronauts to the moon and possibly even Mars. How far is it going to set that mission back, do you think?

[00:14:54]>> It's it's difficult to tell. We know that there's going to have to be a forensic investigation because after an explosion like this, the rocket is destroyed, the pad has damaged, the surrounding support equipment has been damaged. So, it's going to take a while for them, more than likely take a while for them to determine specifically where the problem occurred, what causes, fix the problem, test it again before they can move forward. So, there will definitely be an impact to their schedule. The question is how long will this impact be? Yeah, Captain.

[00:15:25]>> Yeah, I can go ahead.

[00:15:27]>> I I talk a little bit more about this.

[00:15:29]You know, for people in the audience who may not know, this particular rocket, the new Glenn, uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Both of those things are highly explosive. And at the pad, they're kept separate from each other.

[00:15:40]And then they're loaded onto the rocket at the very last minute. And they're supposed to be ignited in a very, very controlled manner. Well, obviously something happened that was uncontrolled. We don't know whether there was a hydrogen leak, a liquid oxygen leak, whether the two leaked together, whether there was a stray spark. We don't think lightning hit.

[00:15:58]There are lightning arresters at the path. But was there lightning? Was there static electricity? So something ignited one or more of these propellants which caused the uh the explosion. It's just a very very difficult uh thing to nail down, but they will get to the bottom of it. Go ahead please with your question.

[00:16:16]So, it sounds like there are several questions, a whole list of questions.

[00:16:20]Right now, this is very preliminary. How long do you think it'll take before we get some of these answers?

[00:16:26]>> Oh my goodness. I think I believe that's going to be minimum months. It may more than likely months before we know what the final answer is. They will have a clue as to what happened uh potentially in a relatively short period of time because there were sensors feeding data back to a control center. So the first thing that will happen is that the engineers can review this data. They will be able to determine for example if there was a leak, maybe there's a big pressure drop, maybe that's a clue or maybe there's a pressure rise or maybe there's a temperature rise someplace. So that'll be the first clue and then they'll track it down from there. So there will be preliminary information probably soon within a few weeks, but the the final report may be months, maybe even a year from now before they know. Hopefully it will be relatively soon because we want to keep the program on track. Yeah, Captain. The great news tonight is that no one was hurt. And when you look at this video, it's kind of really hard to believe. Like some of the viewers said, it looks like a nuclear bomb is going off. That explosion is something like I've never seen before. What do you know about where do they keep the personnel when they're doing these sorts of tests?

[00:17:32]>> Yes, the nearest personnel are miles away during these tests and also doing launches. Uh I can't say specifically how many miles for this one, but for example in our space shuttle launch, the closest people to the pad where the the uh rescue crew inside of an armored personnel carrier that is an army tank, they were two miles away. So the general public is three miles away. So in this case, I'm sure the the closest people were in a bunker or an armored uh uh uh secure area several miles away. And uh you know the reason we the Cape is built the way it is is so that you can protect the surrounding public and also protect the surrounding environment. You know we live on a wildlife refuge. We mean the the the the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Kennedy Space Center wildlife refuge. So we don't want to impact the wildlife in the area also. So it's cing off this miles of separations between the pad and the surrounding environment.

[00:18:31]And for just that reason, we don't want to hurt people and we don't want to hurt the environment.

[00:18:35]>> Captain, talk to us a little bit more about the layout of the land because I don't know if you were tuned in early enough to hear Esther Bower, who covers the space coast extensively for us, but she made note that this test was happening on uh 36, launchpad 36, and she said that most of the launches that she covers is on launchpad 39. So, when we're looking at the layout of this, how could this have been different if this happened at 39 or one of the other launch pads compared to 36?

[00:19:02]>> Well, again, the the uh launch complex has a series of pads and they're located typically oriented north to south and they're labeled in in the miles in length apart from each other. So, this was on 36. So they because this pad was dedicated to the test of the new Glenn Law rocket pads 39 of course are being la being used by space X launching people into orbit and so on. So different pads are designated for different rockets and that's prim primarily due to the configuration of that rocket. The rocket has to fit on that pad. So 36 was selected some time ago to be used by uh by Blue Origin for this particular test. So we we don't want to mix test firings of one rocket with operational firings of another rocket on that pad because we don't want to damage those. So I I hope I'm coming clear on that. Uh so the damage the damage is likely confined only to launch complex 36. Uh it does not spill over to an adjacent launch pad. They are miles apart. And the miles apart for that very that very reason.

[00:20:10]>> Yeah. I was going to ask you if there's any like maybe shared equipment that the other companies they all use or I don't know gas lines or anything like that where this could impact NASA or SpaceX or ULA or any of the other companies out there?

[00:20:25]>> No, highly unlikely. Each launch pad, each launch company, each launch test would have its own uh pad its own separate equipment. The everything is is separate for just this very reason. You don't want an accident like this uh on one pad affecting operations on a separate pad. So, no, this should be >> What about the consequences though that this could have? I mean, this is pretty frightening. As a former astronaut, you got to look at this and kind of be a little disturbed that this this happened. Thankfully, it did happen during a test. But do you foresee maybe other rockets being grounded for a little bit while the this investigation happens?

[00:21:04]>> No, I don't. this investigation is going going to occur occur only with the new Glenn rocket unless I'll caveat that if there's evidence that something generic occurred say a piece of pad equipment malfunction and caused this.

[00:21:21]>> Now that same type of equipment may be on a different pad. I think that's highly unlikely. I think the most likely cause is something having to do specifically with the new Glenn rocket.

[00:21:33]So, I don't think uh this specific incident is going to ground other rockets. New Glenn will be grounded until this investigation is complete and the appropriate repairs and upgrades have have been done.

[00:21:46]>> Captain, I obviously you've been in the industry for a while now. What has your phone been I mean, I imagine your phone has been going off the hook at this point. What was your initial reaction when you saw the video? The first thing that came to mind when you saw that first image? Well, I tell you what, it certainly is shocking. It gets your attention. There's no doubt about it. It was spectacular and spectacular in a very, very negative way. And is very disconcerting. You I don't I don't want to paint the picture that this is something that we just blow off. It's very, very, very serious. But again, I have to say that this is all part of the developmental process. When you're building rockets, it happens sometime. It's it's unfortunate but again this is the reason we do tests and the reason we do static hot fire test. This was a hot fire test.

[00:22:35]You know you you can have a wet dress rehearsal where you actually load the propellants and then you check for leaks. You pressurize the tanks and so on. Then you can have a wet dress rehearsal with no firing. You have a wet dress rehearsal followed by a static fire test. So the rocket is clamped down. has no intention to to have it fly, but then you ignite the engines and you bring them typically up to full power. Uh, a hot fire test typically only lasts seconds, maybe 10 seconds, maybe 20 seconds to get the engines up to full power typically to be sure that everything works properly. Then you shut it down and you review the data. So, that's how the the sequence works. I kind of lost track of the original question, but uh but that's how the sequence works. All right, Captain Scott, we just got a statement from the owner of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos. We want to read it and then get your reaction on this. It says, quote, "All personnel are accounted for and safe.

[00:23:34]It's too early to know the root cause, but we're already working to find it.

[00:23:38]Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." What do you think about that, Captain?

[00:23:47]>> Absolutely. It most certainly is worth it. That statement is right on the money. And again, I I know I keep saying this over and over again, but uh but that's why we test. We test to be sure that everything works properly. And if it doesn't work, we want to find out here on the ground in a quote unquote safe environment before we put those rockets on a vehicle that's carrying people. You know, again, we take it for granted, but I bet in the early days of automobile development, there were engine fires and fuel tank explosions.

[00:24:16]And in the early days of aircraft engines, they were explosions and things like that. Even during my day, I worked at a test and evaluation facility, we had a jet engine blow up in the test cell. You know, we found out what the problem was, repair it, put the engine back in the airplane, and yours truly got to go out and fly those engines after they were developed. So, again, it's part of the developmental process.

[00:24:39]You're going to have failures like this, and we learn from these failures. we uh implement the things that we learn and we make our rockets and engines and things safer for people and that's what this is all about.

[00:24:53]>> All right, Captain Winston Scott, thank you so much for being with us tonight.

[00:24:57]We really appreciate your insight on this situation that's happening.

[00:25:01]>> My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

[00:25:04]>> All right. Well, again, we are working still following this breaking news off the space coast tonight. Blue Origin has confirmed a massive explosion that happened during a static fire test. We are still working to gather more details and we'll have much more after the break.

[00:25:22]>> That was a Fox 35 in Orlando covering this explosion of a Blue Origin rocket on the launchpad there. And this is a live look right now. You can see the launch pad still smoking. We saw some flames just a little while ago. And according to emergency officials in a statement to Fox 35, they said that the current plan is to allow this contained fire on the launchpad to burn itself out. So, they're just going to be watching this. That's the latest info from emergency officials on this explosion. Again, this was a Blue Origin rocket in Cape Canaveral that was conducting a static fire test when that explosion happens. Blue Origin calling this an anomaly. We also have some reaction coming in. This is from the representative who uh represents that district where this happened. He said, "I've already spoken to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman regarding the explosion of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket tonight at Kennedy Space Center.

[00:26:24]I am grateful there were no reported injuries and thankful for the first responders, engineers, and launch crews who acted quickly, praying for Florida Space Coast, and everyone involved. And we just saw Fox 35 had that statement from Jeff Bezos, uh, the owner of Blue Origin, saying, "Everyone is accounted for." We also have this from Bvard Emergency Services, saying an anomaly occurred this evening during a static fire test for Blue Origin. There is no threat to the general public. And this is a live look right now at the launchpad. Still a little a little bit of smoke coming from that launchpad as emergency officials say the plan is to allow this fire to burn itself out. And we did have video of that explosion as it happened in the last hour or so.

[00:27:16]Getting this from a viewer who caught this on camera. You can see that big plume of smoke and fire on the launch pad there at the Blue, excuse me, the Blue Origin rocket exploding there in Florida. But we're going to continue following this and bring you updates as we get