Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket experienced a catastrophic explosion during a static fire test at Launch Complex 36(LC-36) in Cape Canaveral at around 1400 UTC on May 29, destroying the vehicle and causing extensive damage to the launch site’s infrastructure. No personnel were injured, but the incident has frozen the company’s launch manifest and jeopardized critical NASA Artemis and Amazon Leo missions.

The anomaly occurred as the rocket’s seven BE-4 engines ignited for a hotfire test. The 321-foot (98 meters) rocket collapsed, causing its methane and liquid oxygen load to erupt into a massive fireball that obliterated the transporter erector and knocked out at least one lightning protection tower.

The blast destroyed the New Glenn rocket itself and severely damaged LC-36, Blue Origin’s only orbital launch facility. Reports indicate significant damage to the pad, hangars, and test facilities, with no backup pad available to replace it.

"We experienced an anomaly during today's hotfire test," Blue Origin wrote in an statement. " All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more."

Nobody was injured, Blue Origin said in an update on X on Thursday night. But damage to the pad — Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) — could be extensive, judging by the extent of the explosion, which multiple rocket-watchers captured on video.

"All personnel are accounted for and safe. It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it," Jeff Bezos, the billionaire and founder of Blue Origin, wrote in a statement on social media. "Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.

The FAA confirmed the test was outside licensed activities and will not lead a separate inquiry. Blue Origin must determine the root cause before the site can be cleared, a process expected to take longer than the investigation itself due to the need to rebuild the pad.

"RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) events are not unusual in the rocket world," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X Friday.

The explosion directly threatens NASA’s lunar exploration timeline, as New Glenn is the designated launch vehicle for Blue Origin’s Blue Moon landers. Moon Base 1, a mission scheduled for fall 2026 to deliver lunar terrain vehicles is now in doubt, despite a recent $188 million contract award.

The Blue Moon Mark 2 prototype, intended for a 2027 low-Earth orbit demonstration for Artemis 3, and the subsequent crewed landing for Artemis 4 in 2028, face significant delays.

Administrator Jared Isaacman said that NASA is assessing near-term mission impacts and will provide updates on the Artemis and Moon Base programs as more information becomes available.

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult," Isaacman said in an X post. "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. 
We will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

The incident suspended all 24 contracted launches for Amazon’s Leo broadband constellation. The NG-4 mission was scheduled to deploy 48 satellites on June 4, 2026, but no satellites were on board during the test.

Both New Glenn and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur use the same BE-4 engine. If the investigation identifies engine failure as the root cause, ULA’s Vulcan rocket—already grounded due to a separate booster anomaly—could face additional constraints.

This is the third major anomaly for New Glenn in its brief history. The rocket recently resumed flight operations after an FAA grounding following the NG-3 mission’s upper-stage failure in April 2026.

Tensions escalated early Thurday, amid fragile ceasefire negotiations as U.S. forces struck an Iranian ground control station near Bandar Abbas Airport and shot down five Iranian drones, which U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) described as "measured, purely defensive" actions intended to maintain the ceasefire.

The U.S. military stated these strikes were in response to Iranian forces threatening commercial maritime traffic and U.S. troops in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian naval forces had previously fired upon a U.S. tanker that attempted to transit by turning off its radar system.

In retaliation for the Bandar Abbas strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched missiles and drones at a U.S. airbase in Kuwait, which Kuwait’s military confirmed and intercepted.

The IRGC claimed the attack targeted the "source" of the aggression and warned of a "more decisive response" to future U.S. actions. CENTCOM condemned the Iranian strike on Kuwait as an "egregious ceasefire violation," while Iran’s foreign ministry denounced the U.S. strikes as a breach of the truce and a threat to national sovereignty.

On Thursday night the IRGC reportedly fired warning missiles from Chamran Air Base in Bushehr, at several ships including American vessels that attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz without Iran's authorization. An American reconnaissance drone was also reportedly shot down over the coastal city of Jam, as Iranian officials claimed a "hostile aircraft" was destroyed, with a local official saying the city is back to normal. However according to CENTCOM, "No US aircraft were shot down. All US air assets are accounted for.

The incident occurred amid high-stakes peace negotiations aimed at ending the three-month war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world's oil and LNG passes.

President Donald Trump stated the U.S. was "not satisfied" with the current deal progress, rejecting Iranian proposals for joint management of the strait with Oman, and imposing new sanctions on the Persian Gulf Strait Authority.

Meanwhile, Israel intensified airstrikes in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, adding to regional instability as both sides accused each other of violating the fragile security arrangements. The Jewish state also carried out an assassination strike in Beirut targeting Ali al-Husni, the head of the missile force in the Imam Hossein Division a militia operating alongside Hezbollah.

Israeli officials are reportedly privately urging the Trump administration to abandon negotiations with Iran, assassinate Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and launch a new round of strikes targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure.

The Israelis reportedly believe renewed attacks could trigger economic collapse and eventually regime change, as the Jewish state works to undermine negotiations between the Trump administration and the Iranians.

Israeli officials fear that a negotiated settlement could leave Iran politically strengthened, preserve its regional influence, and cement its leverage over one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints.

Expedition 74 commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and flight engineer Sergei Mikaev on Wednesday, conducted a 6-hour, 5-minute spacewalk (1418–2023 UTC) to install the Solntse-Teragerts telescope on the exterior of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station (ISS). This instrument is designed to observe and collect data on strong solar flares at various frequencies to improve prediction models, with an expected operational lifespan through 2028.

During the extravehicular activity (EVA), the cosmonauts rode at one end of the European Robotic Arm (ERA), a 40-foot-long (11.3-meter) remote manipulator to retrieve a cassette containing semiconducting material produced by the Ekran-M molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) experiment from the Nauka module; this experiment uses gallium arsenide to create ultra-pure films in microgravity.

The cosmonauts ran into some difficulty retrieving the cassette, including losing a pair of pliers and commands sent from the ground failing to move the experiment's interior mechanisms. However, with some workarounds, they were able to collect the sample for its return inside the station.

Before moving on with their other tasks, Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev took a moment to recognize the 80th anniversary of RKK (RSC) Energia, Roscosmos' design bureau founded in August 1946 and the birthday of St. Petersburg. The spacewalkers held up a card printed with a commemorative logo and posed for photographs.

The crew inspected and secured a Kurs rendezvous antenna on the Progress MS-33 cargo spacecraft, which had failed to deploy during its March launch, and retrieved a Biorisk science container holding bacterial and seed samples before jettisoning used window cleaners.

This was Kud-Sverchkov’s second spacewalk, bringing his total time in the vacuum of space to 12 hours and 11 minutes, while it was Mikaev’s first. This was also the 279th spacewalk in support of the ISS since 1998.