Tag: blue origin

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket explodes during testing in Florida

Posted on by faz_business


Blue Origin’s New Glenn mega-rocket just exploded during testing at a launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to live streams from NASASpaceFlight.com and SpaceFlight Now. Blue Origin later confirmed the explosion.

Jeff Bezos’ space company was performing a static fire test ahead of an anticipated fourth launch of the new rocket in the coming weeks, which was supposed to carry Amazon Leo internet satellites to space. That means the rocket was likely fully fueled, contributing to what is one of the largest rocket explosions in U.S. history and the worst failure in Blue Origin’s existence.

Blue Origin said in an X post Thursday evening that “[a]ll personnel have been accounted for,” and Bezos wrote that they were “safe.” The company didn’t say what went wrong, only that an “anomaly” occurred.

“It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it,” Bezos wrote.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a post late Thursday that the agency will “work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.”

In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told TechCrunch it was aware of the explosion and said there was “no impact to air traffic.” NASA and the Space Force did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The explosion likely means Blue Origin will have to pause the New Glenn rocket program for an extended period of time while it works through what went wrong. Blue Origin had been planning to attempt as many as 12 launches of New Glenn this year, after the company spent around a decade developing it in an attempt to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The company is also supposed to help power NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon, with the agency highlighting Blue Origin’s expected role in that program earlier this week. Isaacman said Thursday that NASA will “provide any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available.”

Blue Origin has been aiming to launch national security missions for the Pentagon as well.

“Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard,” Elon Musk wrote on X shortly after the explosion. “I hope you recover quickly.”

The explosion comes just a few weeks after Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket flew for the third time ever. That mission suffered its own failure when the New Glenn upper stage failed to put an AST SpaceMobile satellite into orbit, causing a total loss of the mission. Just last week, the FAA cleared New Glenn to fly again after Blue Origin completed an investigation into the cause of the failure.

A very new, late rocket

Blue Origin has spent years developing New Glenn while it used its New Shepard program to test out smaller-scale sub-orbital rockets. While New Shepard has ferried a fairly regular cadence of wealthy people and celebrities (along with some science missions) to the edge of space, Blue Origin was constantly working in the background to develop a rocket that could put real commercial payloads like large satellites into orbit.

That work took a long time — longer than Blue Origin had anticipated — but finally came to a head in January 2025, when the company flew New Glenn for the first time.

New Glenn appeared to be a fairly successful rocket right off the bat. It reached orbit during that first flight, though the booster stage exploded before Blue Origin could attempt to land it on a drone ship in the ocean.

Blue Origin was even more successful with New Glenn’s second flight, though, in November 2025. During that mission the company launched twin spacecraft to Mars for NASA. Blue Origin also landed its first booster stage during New Glenn’s second mission.

That allowed the company to re-fly the booster on New Glenn’s third mission, showing not only the ability to recover the first stage, but refurbish it for re-use — a critical step in reducing the overall cost of operating a launch business.

The re-used rocket booster had no problems flying again, and even landed a second time on one of Blue Origin’s drone ships, during New Glenn’s third mission in April 2026. But the company experienced a cryogenic failure in the upper stage during mission three, which led to the loss of the satellite.

This upcoming fourth mission was supposed to be the first of 24 launches that Amazon has contracted Blue Origin for. Amazon is currently building out a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network, which it calls Leo. On Wednesday, Amazon touted its ability to rely on Blue Origin to build the network, calling New Glenn a “reusable, heavy-lift rocket.”

Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch late Thursday that no Leo satellites were on board for this test.

Late Thursday, Congressman Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), who represents the district that is home to Cape Canaveral, wrote on X that he had spoken with NASA administrator Jared Isaacman about the explosion.

“I am grateful there were no reported injuries and thankful for the first responders, engineers, and launch crews who acted quickly. Praying for Florida’s Space Coast and everyone involved,” he said.

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These Laser Beams Could Power Military Drones 5,000 Feet in the Air

Posted on by faz_business


When drones run low on battery, they’ll either fly back or just drop out of the air. But a new technology might just allow the drones to recharge while in the air.

In a December 16 press release, Washington-based startup PowerLight Technologies announced it had completed preliminary testing for its end-to-end laser power beaming system for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, combines a high-power transmitter with a lightweight receiver to charge drones remotely.

“This is much more than point-to-point power transfer using a laser; we are building an intelligent mesh energy network capability,” PowerLight CTO Tom Nugent said in the release.

Wireless flight schemes

Installed onboard the aircraft is a receiver weighing roughly 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms) that uses laser power converters to detect lasers and convert them into electricity. An additional control module helps establish communications with a ground station.

Transmitter To Drone Graphics 7 636x1024
Concept drawing of power beaming from ground-based transmitter to UAS-integrated receiver © PowerLight

In the most recent tests, the system successfully transmitted lasers to aircraft flying up to 5,000 feet (1,524 meters), the company said. The components form a “wireless power line” that optically tracks the aircraft and transmits kilowatts of energy to the battery onboard, according to PowerLight.

“Our transmitter communicates with the UAS, tracks its velocity and vector, and delivers energy exactly where it’s needed,” Nugent said. “We have now successfully tested the power transmission and tracking algorithms, validating the core architecture needed for our upcoming flight demonstrations.”

Power beaming technology

The new technology is a part of the Power TRansmitted Over Laser to UAS (PTROL-UAS) program, a Department of Defense initiative to establish such “power beaming” techniques for powering autonomous systems.

Powerlighttech Ground Based Transmitter
PowerLight transmitter during range testing in December 2025. © PowerLight

“A platform that doesn’t need to land to refuel or recharge is one that never blinks,” Fatema Hamdani, CEO of Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, PowerLight’s partner for the project, said in the statement.

This isn’t the first time PowerLight has collaborated with the government. Last year, the startup joined Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin in designing a power beaming system for charging lunar rovers.

As for PTROL-UAS, with the latest tests, Powerlight will commence the first rounds of fully integrated flight testing in early 2026. These trials will demonstrate “infinite flight” capability, the company said.

Blue Origin sticks first New Glenn rocket landing and launches NASA spacecraft

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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has landed the booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean on just its second attempt — making it the second company to perform such a feat, following Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

It’s an accomplishment that will help the new rocket system become an option to send larger payloads to space, the moon, and beyond.

Thursday’s launch wasn’t just about the landing attempt, though. Roughly 34 minutes after takeoff, the upper stage of New Glenn successfully deployed the rocket’s first commercial payload: twin spacecraft for NASA that will travel to Mars to study the red planet’s atmosphere.

The pair of achievements are remarkable for the second-ever launch of such a massive rocket system. And it could put Blue Origin in position to compete with SpaceX, which dominates the world’s launch market with its Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship rockets.

The accomplishment is noteworthy for the broader space industry, and one that SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell acknowledged via a post on social media site X with a simple “Magnificent!” Musk even offered his own congratulations shortly after.

New Glenn’s first launch was in January, and Blue Origin experienced a number of delays in getting the second rocket to launch. The company had hoped to make a second attempt as early as the spring, but pushed it back multiple times. New Glenn finally made it to the launch pad on Sunday, but weather and solar storms delayed it further.

The rocket finally took off from Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday at around 3:55 p.m. ET. At about four minutes into the flight, the second stage separated and headed further into space, while the New Glenn booster began its journey back toward Earth. Roughly 10 minutes into the flight, the 189-foot-tall booster touched down on the platform.

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Blue Origin had attempted to bring the New Glenn booster back on the rocket’s first flight in January. But the booster exploded before it had a chance to land on the drone ship. Blue Origin worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to identify and make a number of fixes to the rocket, and the company was confident it could stick the landing on attempt number two.

The ability to land a booster like this is an important step in making the rocket system reusable, which lowers the cost for customers — a capability that SpaceX has mastered. Blue Origin will now have to demonstrate the ability to refurbish the rocket booster and launch it again.

These are crucial capabilities for commercial customers and government missions. Blue Origin has had its eyes on the moon for years, and is currently developing a lunar lander. So is SpaceX, with Starship. But the government has asked them to speed up these programs, and acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy recently criticized SpaceX for moving too slowly.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp recently said in response his company “will move heaven and Earth” to help NASA get back to the moon faster. But it can’t do that without successfully proving out all of New Glenn’s capabilities.

Thursday’s launch went a long way toward accomplishing that overarching goal.

This rocket-launch photo is unlike any you’ve seen before

Posted on by faz_business


Blue Origin launched its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket for the first time last week, and news sites and social media feeds were quick to share dramatic images of the 98-meter-tall rocket heading toward the heavens.

At the same time, NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured the launch in a long exposure from the International Space Station (ISS) some 250 miles above Earth. The result is a rocket-launch photo unlike any you’ve seen before:

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket visible as a streak of light from bottom right to top left.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket visible as a faint streak of light from bottom right to top left. Don Pettit / NASA

Sharing the image in a post on X, Pettit, who arrived at the orbital outpost in September, explained that it was captured over a period of four minutes, which explains the star trails that dominate the picture. With Earth at the bottom, the New Glenn rocket is visible as a faint streak crossing the image from the bottom right to the upper left.

“This was not an easy photograph to take,” Pettit wrote, adding that the space station was over Oklahoma at the beginning of the exposure and over central Gulf of Mexico at the end.


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Pettit has earned a reputation for his impressive photography work during four missions to orbit over the last couple of decades. The experienced astronaut is particularly fond of shots filled with star trails, but this appears to be the first time that he’s been lucky enough to include a rocket launch in one.

Other notable images from Pettit’s current ISS mission include one showing a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft hurtling back to Earth, and another showing the bright glow of an aurora above Earth.

Always on the lookout for a stunning scene, he also captured this stunning image of waterways, which he described as “flowing silver snakes.”

Pettit recently took time out to talk about his photography work in an interview from the space station.






How Blue Origin’s Sunday night launch went from giant leap to awkward stumble

Posted on by faz_business


There were high hopes for the maiden launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on Sunday, but sadly, it wasn’t to be.

The late-night NG-1 mission was supposed to be a giant leap for Blue Origin rocket technology, but the 98-meter-tall vehicle failed to get off the ground as planned.

Blue Origin’s live stream kicked off at midnight ET, 60 minutes before the three-hour launch window opened for the New Glenn’s departure from Cape Canaveral in Florida.


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Welcoming viewers to the stream, presenters Ariane Cornell and Denisse Aranda spoke enthusiastically as they shared their excitement for the debut flight of Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket.

“This is happening,” Ariane said. Except that it wasn’t.

At around 12:30 a.m., with 27 minutes to go until the first launch opportunity, the stream dropped in on a bunch of kids and their parents waiting to watch the launch from a park close to Cape Canaveral. The children smiled and cheered, perhaps in anticipation of the imminent liftoff, though definitely because they were up way past their bedtimes. We also visited Blue Origin employees at multiple sites across the U.S., cheering excitedly ahead of launch. The one that didn’t quite happen.

Early on, things seemed to be going smoothly enough for the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos. But then, just 17 minutes from liftoff, the countdown clock on the screen suddenly disappeared before quickly reappearing with an extra 20 minutes added. If you blinked, you would’ve missed it.

“They just need a couple more minutes … that is A-OK with all of us,” Cornell said in a reassuring voice that gave no indication of what was coming.

The delay gave the live stream more time to play all of the prepared video inserts explaining everything about the New Glenn rocket and its Blue Ring Pathfinder payload.

But disappointingly, 11 minutes later, the countdown clock jumped again, adding another 14 minutes to take it back to 33 minutes. Folks watching the stream at home may have started to wonder if the problem was with the clock itself, not with the rocket. At this rate, unless the engineers could work out why the darn clock kept adding minutes, we could be stuck here for weeks.

But then things began to look up as the clock ticked all the way down to 9 minutes before launch … before suddenly resetting to 29 minutes. There was mention of a checklist that the Blue Origin engineers had to get through.

Popular YouTuber Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut, who was running his own live stream commentating on the commentators, took a deep breath. “Oh no, another delay. You know, it’s not ideal for my sleep schedule, it’s really not,” he said.

Back at the park, the kids weren’t smiling anymore. Approaching 2 a.m. ET, it really was way past their bedtime now. Even some of the parents had a “it’s way past my bedtime, too” look on their faces. Heck, even Bezos was probably stifling a yawn or two. One little girl, who fortunately was still awake, was asked what she was most looking forward to about the launch. “Going home once this is all over,” she probably wanted to say, but staying on message like a true Blue Origin believer, she responded: “For the rocket to go up into space.” She didn’t know it then, but it was asking a lot.

Promisingly, the clock continued to tick down, all the way to 14 minutes. And then it reset to 35 minutes. This time around, Cornell, perhaps not wanting to believe it, didn’t even acknowledge the delay. Exhausted folks at home may have started to wonder if their mind was playing tricks on them.

Dodd emitted a chuckle of despair, but tried to stay clear-headed about the situation. “I expect this, I expect delays, I am not shocked by this,” he said in a tone of voice that made you wonder if he really believed what he was saying.

By 2:15 a.m., the official Blue Origin live stream appeared to have run out of video inserts, leaving viewers to stare at footage of a rocket still very much on terra firma.

The New Glenn on the launchpad.
The New Glenn rocket on the launchpad. Blue Origin

At 11 minutes until liftoff, the countdown clock jumped yet again, resetting to 38 minutes. “Noooo, noooo, nooooo!” Dodd said, noting that Blue Origin’s launch window was rapidly closing.

“They’re working through their checklist,” Cornell said again, leaving viewers to wonder if the oft-mentioned checklist, if laid out on a single piece of paper, might reach all the way to the moon.

The countdown clock made it to 12 minutes, and then, in its oddest switch yet, flipped to zero seconds. “It’s lifting off, it’s lifting off,” Dodd said, adding, “It’s not lifting off … that is not a good sign.”

The Blue Origin live stream camera stayed firmly fixed on the New Glenn rocket, which itself appeared to be firmly fixed to the ground. Cornell and Aranda stayed silent. Perhaps they’d fallen asleep. Folks watching the live stream continued to stare at the rocket. The silence was deafening. Had everyone gone home and forgotten to tell them?

At around 3 a.m., and possibly after having just enjoyed a brief power nap, Cornell returned to the stream to announce that the launch had been scrubbed. The reason? Not a faulty countdown clock, but a “vehicle subsystem issue.”

Dodd summed it up before heading to bed. “I kind of expected that, to be honest. Better to be safe than sorry.”

He’s right. It’s not unusual for maiden launches like this to face such issues. Blue Origin has to get it right, and it’s just bad luck for the folks who stayed up late in anticipation of enjoying what should eventually be a spectacular launch. There’ll be another chance soon, and hopefully the New Glenn will finally get to fire up its rocket engines and head skyward.

Fancy another launch attempt? SpaceX’s Starship megarocket is supposed to lift off on its seventh test flight on Wednesday. But do keep an eye on that countdown clock.