Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test • Hacker News Board

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#11

Post by d_silin » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

ezfe wrote: post #10

d_silin wrote: post #4

Very unfortunate, but strategically this changes nothing for US spaceflight. If anything, SpaceX will continue to increase its dominance.

Blue Origin is challenging SpaceX - they are not the incumbent. I'm not sure how you can say that SpaceX will increase dominance despite this.

SpaceX will increase the lead from all potential competitors even further.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#12

Post by pylotlight » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:31 AM UTC

SilverElfin wrote: post #3

Shame. I would love to see a competitor rein in SpaceX.

> rein in? You don't like going to space? What do you have against progress?

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#13

Post by MPSimmons » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:31 AM UTC

RattlesnakeJake wrote: post #6

NSF is also reporting that it took out one of the lightning rod towers. It'll be interesting to see how much damage the pad and ground equipment sustained.

It was very likely the largest explosion in Florida spaceflight history. Considerably larger than when SpaceX blew up AMOS-6 in 2016, and that required a full rebuild of the pad infrastructure over 18 months.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#14

Post by boredatoms » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

Thats a very impressive bang

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#15

Post by senectus1 » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

d_silin wrote: post #4

Very unfortunate, but strategically this changes nothing for US spaceflight. If anything, SpaceX will continue to increase its dominance.

it'll probably be a favorable event for SpaceX's IPO.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#16

Post by jleyank » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

This shows the importance of choosing the correct jargon and terminology, and then employing clear and unambiguous communication. They asked engineers for a static fire test. Got one hell of a fire, so that’s good, but it wasn’t very static…

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#17

Post by ebiederm » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

Hooray! A static test fire caught a problem.

Crap! There was a serious latent problem for the test fire to find.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#18

Post by 7e » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:46 AM UTC

IPO must be in the works!

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#19

Post by 7e » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:47 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #15

d_silin wrote: post #4

Very unfortunate, but strategically this changes nothing for US spaceflight. If anything, SpaceX will continue to increase its dominance.

it'll probably be a favorable event for SpaceX's IPO.

Surely not as favorable for the IPO as SpaceX’s own recent explosion and multiple engine failures?

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#20

Post by kortilla » Fri, May 29, 2026, 2:51 AM UTC

7e wrote: post #19

senectus1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it'll probably be a favorable event for SpaceX's IPO.

Surely not as favorable for the IPO as SpaceX’s own recent explosion and multiple engine failures?

Blowing up on the pad is incredibly worse from a design data collection perspective, a risk to life perspective, and a downstream impact to future launches perspective (nobody can use that site for a couple of months).