The New Glenn rocket of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’ company ‘Blue Origin’ exploded on the launch pad during a test in Florida. In the footage, a large ball of fire was seen forming as the rocket exploded. The accident happened during the hotfire test. Blue Origin said that the hotfire test was being conducted in Cape Canaveral, Florida at around 9:00 pm. During this test, there was a malfunction in the rocket and this accident happened. This test was being done in preparation for a launch to take place in the coming days. Hot fire test is a very important process to check the efficiency of a rocket’s engine before sending it into space. In this, the rocket is tied tightly to the ground with the help of clamps on the launchpad itself. Then its engines are started at full power for a fixed period of time. Jeff Bezos said – All employees are safe, will try again Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said that all the employees are safe in the accident. We are busy finding out the cause of the accident. Today has been a very difficult day, but whatever needs to be rebuilt, we will rebuild it and get back to flying. There is no danger to the public, according to the US Space Force Brevard County Emergency Management, which is involved in the investigation, there is no danger to the general public from this explosion on the launch pad. The US Space Force has informed that emergency responders are present at the incident site. Additionally, officials are working closely with Blue Origin to evaluate the available data and determine the exact cause of this anomaly. NASA said – Spaceflight is not easy, will support complete investigation NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that spaceflight does not forgive anyone and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is an exceptionally difficult task. We will work closely with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess the impacts on future missions, and return to rocket launches. The new rocket was also grounded last month. This is the second major problem with Blue Origin in recent times. Only last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had ordered an investigation into an accident related to the failed launch of a satellite, after which the company’s ‘New Glenn’ was grounded. There was a big success in November. Before these recent difficulties, the space company had successfully launched a ‘New Glenn’ rocket from Florida in November last year. During that mission, the company had succeeded in successfully landing its reusable booster for the first time. Blue Origin has spent nearly a decade and billions of dollars preparing this New Glenn rocket. This is a rocket as big as a 29-storey building, whose first stage can be reused. That means it is a reusable rocket. It has been designed to compete with Elon Musk’s Falcon rockets and powerful Starships. There were preparations to challenge Musk’s ‘Starlink’. Interestingly, just a day before this incident, on Wednesday, Blue Origin had announced that it was preparing to send 48 ‘Leo’ satellites of Amazon into the lower orbit of space (low-Earth orbit) through the New Glenn rocket. With the help of these satellites, Amazon wants to create a worldwide broadband internet network, which will directly compete with Elon Musk’s ‘Starlink’ network. However, the company has not yet fixed any date for this launch. After the video of the rocket explosion surfaced, Elon Musk wrote on X- “Very unfortunate. Making and operating rockets is really difficult.”
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Jeff Bezos’s company’s rocket explodes on launchpad: Big ball of fire seen forming; Bezos said – all employees safe, will try again
