{"id":58077,"date":"2026-05-29T14:28:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=58077"},"modified":"2026-05-29T14:29:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:29:31","slug":"exploding-rocket-casts-doubts-over-nasas-moon-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=58077","title":{"rendered":"Exploding rocket casts doubts over Nasa’s Moon plans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fireball that lit up the sky over Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre last night has put a big question mark over whether Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin can deliver on a string of commitments to Nasa in its efforts to send astronauts to the lunar surface and build a Moon base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded at about 21:00 local time during a routine test of its engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 98m (322ft) rocket had been due to launch 48 satellites for Amazon’s Leo broadband network, as early as 4 June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The explosion is obviously a big setback for the Leo network, which is struggling to be the main competitor for Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its Starlink service. But the ramifications will go much further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news was that no-one was injured, despite the spectacular explosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“All personnel are accounted for and safe,” Bezos wrote on X. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the blast which tore through Space Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) has caused extensive damage. Footage shows one of the pad’s lightning protection towers toppling in the aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LC-36 is the only facility in the world built to launch the New Glenn rocket. That means that until the launch pad is rebuilt and re-certified, Blue Origin has no way to fly its largest rocket – and analysts expect that to take months, not weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The setback comes just days after Nasa’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, announced the first three missions of the agency’s plans to build a lunar base<\/a> – a project he billed as the start of a “permanent presence” at the Moon’s south pole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first, Moon Base 1, is due to be flown on Blue Origin’s robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 “Endurance” lander, and is targeted for launch no earlier than autumn 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is intended to carry two Nasa science payloads to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge and demonstrate the precision-landing techniques needed to keep future crewed landings safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the lander was to ride to the Moon on top of a New Glenn – the same type of rocket that is now scattered across LC-36 – raising immediate doubts as to whether that timetable is now possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this week, Nasa also handed Blue Origin a contract worth up to $468m to deliver two commercial lunar terrain vehicles, built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, to the Moon’s south pole by 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those rovers are meant to be in place before astronauts arrive. Nasa has set a target date of 2028 for a crewed landing, though that date had been questioned even before last night’s explosion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: The fireball that lit up the sky over Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre last night has put a big question mark over whether Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin can deliver on a string of commitments to Nasa in its efforts to send astronauts to the lunar surface and build a Moon base. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded at about 21:00 local time during a routine test of its engines. The 98m (322ft) rocket had been due to launch 48 satellites for Amazon’s Leo broadband network, as early as 4 June. The explosion is obviously a big setback for the Leo… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58079,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58077\/revisions\/58079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}