Blue Origin provides update on pad repair and New Glenn explosion investigation
New Glenn exploding on May 28th.
The CEO of Blue Origin, David Limp, yesterday posted an update on the company’s effort to get its New Glenn rocket back flying after the May 28, 2026 launchpad explosion, promising once again that they will resume launches before the end of 2026.
Most of his update described the work the company is doing cleaning up and rebuilding the launchpad. For one thing, they are taking advantage of the explosion by going directly to an upgrade whereby they no longer stack New Glenn entirely horizontally. Instead, some stacking will be horizontal, and some vertical. This change is to simplify operations and make the pad compatible for the present New Glenn — with its configuration of seven first stage engines and two upper stage engines (7×2) — and the more powerful 9×4 version, with nine first stage engines and four upper stage engines.
As for the investigation into the explosion itself, Limp was much more vague:
We continue to actively investigate the cause of the anomaly. The vehicle is highly instrumented with extensive data from multiple camera angles and sensors, giving us confidence in our ability to identify and correct the root cause. Early analysis points to the aft section of the first stage.
There is no doubt they can get the launchpad ready before the end of the year. Finding the cause of the explosion and fixing it by December however remains less certain. Limp’s reticence could be simply the company’s desire to restrict access to proprietary information. Or it could be they haven’t yet pinned down the cause. If the latter, the December date becomes far more doubtful.
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Minor edit in second paragraph: “Instead, some stacking will be horizontal, and some vertical.’
Fixed. Thank you.
Another typo in the second paragraph: ‘and the more powerful 8×4 version, with eight first stage engines’ should be ‘and the more powerful 9×4 version, with nine first stage engines.’
Also fixed. Thank you.