A Blue Origin New Glenn spaceship has exploded, disappearing in a massive ball of fire during a test on Thursday night. Fortunately, no injuries have been reported, but it's an expensive setback for Jeff Bezos' space company.
The New Glenn rocket had been undergoing a static hot-fire test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at the time of the explosion. A static hot-fire test is a trial run of the rocket's launch system, involving fuelling up the vehicle and briefly firing all its engines without disengaging the launch mount. Unfortunately, this trial didn't go as planned. At approximately 9 p.m. ET the rocket "experienced an anomaly," which is Blue Origin-speak for "rapid unscheduled disassembly," which is SpaceX-speak for "exploded in a giant fireball." SpaceX suffered a similar accident last June, when its Starship spacecraft also exploded during a static fire test.
You May Also Like
One first stage New Glenn rocket reportedly costs over $100 million to build.
Mashable Light Speed
