A detailed inspection of the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station which was damaged in an explosion of a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket on May 28th has been published. The explosion was the largest-ever in Cape Canaveral’s history and occurred during a test firing of the rocket’s engines.

The explosion has alarmed the satellite industry which was looking to use the New Glenn rocket for launching their satellites. The reason for the explosion has not been released although the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is supervising the analysis.

Blue Origin’s CEO Dave Limp issued a statement on June 2nd saying that nearby propellant tanks at Launch Pad 36 at the site made it through the blast in good shape, as did a nearby processing hangar. He also said that he was confident that the New Glenn rocket would be launching again before the end of this year. If correct, this is good news for the satellite industry given that there were anxieties that repairs could take many months and delay launches until 2027.

Importantly, Limp said that crucial support gantry, while damaged, could be repaired where it stood.

“Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility we can share a bit of good news,” Limp said. “The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG [cryogenic methane] tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced.”

Also damaged in the explosion was the ‘transporter-erector’, the device which moves the rocket from the horizontal to the vertical and then ready for launch. Limp said: “We had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favour of an alternative vertical (rocket assembly capability), and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector.”

The damage is especially crucial in that Blue Origin has only one launch pad at Cape Canaveral (SpaceX has two). The company already had plans to build a second pad at the Cape and another at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. But in the near term, New Glenn rockets cannot fly until Pad 36 is repaired.

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Categories: Articles, Satellite

Tags: Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, New Glenn