Just more than two months since the Blue Origin rocket explosion lit up the skies over Cape Canaveral, the company’s CEO said an oxygen valve on one of the engines was to blame.
Blue Origin was conducting a static fire test of the engines on the New Glenn rocket’s first stage booster on May 28. As the engines fired on Launch Complex 36, the booster burst into flames, creating an enormous billowing fireball. Turns out an oxygen valve one of those BE-4 engines was the cause.
“The anomaly originated at the main oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines, which was later confirmed by hardware recovery and inspections,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote to X on Aug. 5. “Extensive component-level and engine hotfire tests have been conducted to understand the failure mode better and inform mitigations.”
“The path forward is clear. We’re making small modifications to the valve that can be quickly retrofitted to existing engines. We’re manufacturing the updated hardware, which will be ready by the end of this month,” Limp wrote. “In parallel, we’re working through the remaining fault tree analysis.”
On the night of the explosion, the rocket was being tested ahead of an upcoming Amazon Leo internet satellite launch. The satellites were not atop the rocket at the time of the mishap.
Blue Origin, which was founded by Jeff Bezos, has since been making quick progress on clearing out the debris and beginning to rebuild the destroyed launch pad. The company is under pressure by NASA to deliver on the Artemis III mission next year, which calls for four astronauts to dock the Orion spacecraft to the Blue Origin Mark 2 lander in low Earth orbit — a major test flight before the planned 2028 moon landing. Mark 2 is launched on New Glenn.
The May 28 rocket explosion was the largest recorded in Cape Canaveral history. The shockwave was so powerful that a seismic activity detector 135 miles away registered activity.
Blue Origin has said they hope to have both the launch pad and New Glenn operational by year’s end.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Blue Origin reveals cause of Cape Canaveral rocket explosion
Reporting by Brooke Edwards, Florida Today / Florida Today
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By Brooke Edwards, Florida Today | USA TODAY Network
