AI Insight
Blue Origin has identified a faulty main oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines as the cause of the New Glenn rocket explosion that occurred during a May 28, 2024 engine test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company has conducted extensive component-level tests and engine hotfire tests to understand the failure mechanism and is implementing small modifications to the valve design that can be retrofitted to existing engines. Manufacturing of the updated hardware is expected to be complete by the end of August 2024, with parallel fault tree analysis ongoing to ensure comprehensive safety assessment.
Why it matters
This investigation is critical for Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket program, which has only flown three times since its January 2025 debut and recently failed to deploy a satellite into proper orbit. New Glenn is essential for NASA's Artemis lunar program, as it will launch Blue Origin's Blue Moon crewed lander, with an uncrewed prototype test mission scheduled for later this year.
Understand the Science
Blue Origin is close to figuring out why its New Glenn rocket went boom a few months ago.
The explosion — which destroyed the rocket and some key pieces of pad infrastructure — occurred on May 28 during a routine engine test at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Blue Origin has been working hard ever since to determine the cause of the anomaly, and it has made considerable progress, according to a new update.
“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 said via X on Wednesday afternoon (Aug. 5). “Extensive component-level and engine hotfire tests have been conducted to understand the failure mode better and inform mitigations.”
Like SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, the 320-foot-tall (98-meter) New Glenn features a reusable first stage, which is powered by seven BE-4s and designed to launch at least 25 times. The heavy lifter is a big part of Blue Origin’s ambitious plans, which include helping humanity establish a foothold in the final frontier.
“The rocket is engineered with the safety and redundancy required to fly humans, and will enable our vision of building a road to space for the benefit of Earth,” Blue Origin’s website states.
The company, and NASA, are counting on the rocket to get important hardware to the moon. New Glenn will be the ride for Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, one of two crewed landers that NASA picked to get astronauts to and from the lunar surface for its Artemis program. (The other is SpaceX’s Starship.)
And there’s an important Blue Moon mission coming up: the first test flight of the prototype Mark 1 lander, which is scheduled to make an uncrewed lunar touchdown by the end of this year, if possible. That mission will help prove out the vehicle’s capabilities ahead of crewed flights.
Wanted to give an update on the hotfire anomaly investigation. Progress continues. The anomaly originated at the main oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines, which was later confirmed by hardware recovery and inspections. Extensive component-level and engine hotfire tests have…August 5, 2026
New Glenn debuted in January 2025 and has flown two more times since, in November 2025 and April 19 of this year. There was an issue on that most recent launch, which carried up AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 communications satellite: New Glenn failed to deploy the payload into the proper orbit, and it was lost.
Despite that issue, and the May 28 explosion, Limp expressed confidence that Blue Origin will soon get New Glenn up and running again.
“The path forward is clear,” he added in Wednesday’s X post. “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. In parallel, we’re working through the remaining fault tree analysis.”
Source: Blue Origin traces origin of huge New Glenn rocket explosion to oxygen valve, CEO says