Blue Origin’s rocket blowup could cause big problems for NASA – and Amazon’s Leo satellite landing

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is still assessing the damage caused by the catastrophic explosion of a New Glenn rocket this week at the company’s Florida launch site, but it has become clear that it will take months to repair and return to flight. So, what does that mean for Blue Origin and its customers?

“I think the short answer, without revealing it, is that everybody is delayed,” said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, a Florida-based industry research firm.

Thursday night’s explosion occurred during a test of the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, named “No, It’s Required.” The launcher was supposed to put 48 satellites into low Earth orbit early next week on Amazon Leo’s high-speed internet network.

That launch is now off the table, but Amazon Leo (aka Project Kuiper) is moving forward with satellite deployments expected to begin commercial service as soon as this summer. Not far from the devastated Blue Origin pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36, United Launch Alliance sent 29 Amazon Leo satellites into orbit today on an Atlas 5 rocket.

Amazon has also held back a number of upcoming launches on Arianespace’s Ariane 6, ULA’s next-generation Vulcan and SpaceX’s Falcon 9. “Ironically, in terms of customers in New Glenn, Amazon is probably in the best position to deal with this disruption,” Henry said. “They have security because of the diversity of their startup base, when one company goes down, they can depend on another to move forward.”

However, there is a limit. “If they were relying on Blue Origin to get to the minimum number of satellites they felt was necessary to open the service, that goal would take a while,” Henry said.

How long will it take to restore the New Glenn rocket? “If we were looking at something that just failed, I would say three to six months is the expected distance to return to flight,” said Henry.

But it’s not just a rocket failure. There has been extensive damage to the launch site and its surroundings. “We haven’t had so many launch pads destroyed, which is great,” said Henry. “I’ll look at how long it took SpaceX to get back into flight after the AMOS-6 failure in 2016. That’s probably the best proxy for this kind of thing.”

It took SpaceX 15 months to repair its pad at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 40 and relaunch. In the meantime, SpaceX continued to send rockets to other launch pads, but that option is not immediately available for Blue Origin. Launch Complex 36 is the only Blue Origin facility capable of landing New Glenn. Additional pads are being planned in Florida and California, but those plans are in their early stages.

Not good news for NASA

If it takes more than a few months to return New Glenn to service, that will add problems to NASA’s plans to send astronauts to the moon and eventually build a permanent lunar base. New Glenn was supposed to launch Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to the moon this fall with NASA payloads on board, in part to test the technology for a capable Mark 2 lander.

There was a chance that the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander could be tested in low Earth orbit next year during NASA’s Artemis 3 mission. But with New Glenn on the sidelines, the timeline for developing the Blue Moon facilities faces steep hurdles. That will force NASA to rely more on SpaceX’s Starship, which navigates its development challenges.

NASA plans to use Starship or Blue Moon to put astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028 during the Artemis 4 mission. And just this week, NASA announced that it has selected Blue Origin, New Glenn and Blue Moon to deliver two lunar terrain vehicles to the moon in time for use by astronauts in the Artemis program.

John Logsdon, founder of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, told Time magazine that the New Glenn explosion raises new questions about those programs. “This incident certainly threw a wrench into Artemis’s plan, which might not have been possible even before the explosion,” Time quoted Logsdon as saying.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman acknowledged the challenge today in a memo sent to agency employees. “I’m sure it’s not lost on anyone how this situation could impact our Artemis and Moon Base ambitions,” he wrote. “I also know that most of you chose jobs at NASA because you succeed under challenging circumstances. This time is challenging, but it is far from insurmountable.”

A reminder that ‘rockets are tough’

NASA is not the only government customer for the New Glenn launch. The Pentagon is also planning to use the rocket for national security launches. In addition to this week’s explosion, the US Space Force announced today that Blue Origin receives an order from the National Return Office for the launch of New Glenn during the 2027-2028 period.

“This anomaly is a stark reminder that the critical power this community provides through rocket science is inherently challenging,” said Space Force Lt. Col. Doug Downs in a news release. “The National Security Space Launch Program will continue to work closely with our Blue Origin partners to help identify the source and take corrective action.”

According to Henry, one of the biggest losers – at least in the short term – is AST SpaceMobile, which had planned to rely on the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket to launch its BlueBird satellites to connect directly to the device. The first such launch took place last month, but the AST satellite was sent into the wrong orbit.

The fact that New Glenn is now out of commission only adds to AST’s woes.

“If you look at their satellite design, they have very large satellites, which means they cannot fit other rockets, even Falcon 9,” said Henry. “AST is the poster child for the perfect New Glenn customer. … Now they’re going to have to wait a little longer, or become more dependent on other startup providers.”

Finding those alternatives “may be easier said than done, because we’re in the fourth year of a global supply shortage for commercial startups,” Henry said.

AST’s share price is down about 15% today, and other publicly traded space companies have seen their value drop as well — perhaps at least in part because the New Glenn explosion reminded investors that, as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk put it, “rockets are hard.”