How a Blue Origin rocket explosion could impact NASA's moon mission

By — Miles O'Brien Miles O'Brien By — Diane Lincoln Estes Diane Lincoln Estes Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-blue-origin-rocket-explosion-could-impact-nasas-moon-mission Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad during a test in Cape Canaveral on Thursday. The company, owned by Jeff Bezos, said no one was injured and all personnel were accounted for. But the rocket has a crucial role in NASA’s Artemis program to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon. Amna Nawaz discussed its significance with science correspondent Miles O’Brien. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Amna Nawaz: Last night, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad during a test in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The company, owned by Jeff Bezos, said no one was injured and all personnel were accounted for. But the rocket has a crucial role in NASA's Artemis program to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon. Here to walk us through what happened and its significance is our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien. Miles, it's always good to see you. This was a massive explosion, though. The company said there was an anomaly during a test. What happened? Miles O'Brien: You might call that a euphemism, Amna, anomaly. Yes, that was a major malfunction, for sure, and quite an impressive sight. First of all, let's be clear. Nobody got hurt. Everybody was a long way away from this rocket as they were conducting what they call a hot-fire test, which is light up the engines, but don't release the rocket. See how everything goes. Obviously, things did not go well. They will investigate it. They will figure out what it is. Was it one of the engines? Was it something else? A lot of plumbing has to work well on a rocket in order for it to fly safely. But crucially here, Amna, the issue is the destruction of the launchpad. That is a big deal, because they are complicated structures. It takes time to build them and to certify them, at least a year, maybe 15 months to build a new one. And this is the only launchpad that the New Glenn rocket has to get to space. Amna Nawaz: And we should remind folks this was a Blue Origin rocket. The head of its competitor, SpaceX, Elon Musk, posted on X: "Sorry to see this. I hope you recover quickly." But, also, SpaceX's Starship program had its own problems recently, right, Miles? Tell us about that. Miles O'Brien: Yes, a week ago. Space is hard. Amna. We have said this many times. The Starship flew its 12th flight and underperformed yet again. In this case, the booster, which carries the ship to, in this case, near-orbit, as it came down, it basically lost control. And the FAA gets very concerned about that, because they're concerned about public safety. And if engines do