Blue Origin Has Begun Rebuilding its New Glenn Launch Pad – SpaceNews
Blue Origin plans to begin flying at Launch Complex 36 again before the end of this year.
(Cape Canaveral, Florida) Speaking at the VivaTech conference in Paris yesterday (June 17), Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Dave Limp said they were making progress on returning New Glenn to flight after a May 28 explosion during a static-fire test at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36, according to SpaceNews.
Image of NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman surveying Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36 one day after the May 28 explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket there, courtesy of NASA via Space News.
Bezos and Limp said that the Launch Pad would reopen for New Glenn flights before the end of this year.
Per Limp, the pad has been cleared to debris, and reconstruction began on Jun. 16, according to SpaceNews.
Neither of the two gentlemen discussed what cause the explosion or what changes Blue Origin will need to make to the vehicle or to pad infrastructure in response, according to SpaceNews.
“It was a gut punch for the whole team,” Bezos said, per SpaceNews. “But what we’ve learned since then is that we got really lucky. Some of the long-lead items in the launch infrastructure were preserved.”
