Blue Origin rocket explodes during test in latest setback for Jeff Bezos-owned company

No personnel were harmed in the incident, the company said on social media, calling the explosion an ‘anomaly’ Nasa’s plans to build a lunar base and return humans to the moon in the next two years were thrown into jeopardy after a New Glenn rocket from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company exploded during a test in Florida. A massive fireball engulfed and destroyed the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center seconds after the start of the scheduled “hotfire” test at 9pm ET, and an orange sky was visible in Fort Pierce, 185km (115 miles) to the south. It is the type of rocket that Blue Origin intends to use to launch landers to the moon for Nasa, including the landers that will take astronauts to the lunar surface. Bezos, the Blue Origin founder, tweeted that all his company’s employees were accounted for, safe and uninjured, but lamented a “very rough day”. On Tuesday, Nasa announced that Blue Origin had won the contract to launch the first of three planned missions this year to begin construction of its $20bn moon base. It is also in competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide a lunar lander for the Artemis IV mission planned for 2028 that will see astronauts land on the moon for the