Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, encountered an accident during testing after its "New Glenn" rocket exploded and caught fire during an engine test last Thursday.
Blue Origin revealed on the X platform that an anomaly occurred during a "Hot-fire test," a process where the New Glenn rocket's engines are ignited while the rocket is secured on the ground to test performance before an actual launch.
Images shared on social media showed a large fireball shooting up from the test stand after the rocket violently exploded amid thick smoke and flames.
However, the company stated that all staff and personnel are safe and accounted for, with no reports of injuries or fatalities from the incident.
The New Glenn rocket is one of Blue Origin's key projects, with the company spending nearly 10 years developing it and investing several billion U.S. dollars to build a large rocket as tall as a 29-story building.
A standout feature of New Glenn is its design for the first stage to be reusable, aiming to compete with SpaceX's Falcon rocket series and Elon Musk's Starship project, which currently lead the commercial space industry.
There are currently no clear details on the cause of the explosion, while the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet commented on the incident.
/source :channelnewsasia
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