Less than a week after its heavy-lifting rocket exploded on the launch pad, Blue Origin affirmed that it would resume launches within the year.
“We will fly again before the end of this year,” the company’s CEO Dave Limp declared on X on June 1.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket stands more than 320 feet tall. It is powerful enough to deliver 45 metric tons into low Earth orbit, with seven main-stage engines each capable of generating 640,000 pounds of thrust at sea level and two second-stage engines each delivering up to 200,000 pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space.
That entire vehicle suddenly exploded on the night of May 28 during a hotfire test of its mainstage engines, unleashing a fireball said to be visible all the way across the Florida Peninsula….