It’s one giant misstep for mankind.
The Blue Origin rocket that exploded into a stunning fireball during a test debacle on the Florida coast could delay the Artemis space program’s bold mission to land astronauts on the moon, experts said Friday.
The catastrophic explosion Thursday night of the unmanned rocket, dubbed New Glenn, damaged Blue Origin’s only launch pad, which was likely to be central to NASA’s mission of building a lunar base, arstechnica.com reported.
It will drastically alter Blue Origin’s ambitious plans, as it will take at least a year to rebuild the powerful launch pad, known as Blue Moon Mark 1, with one expert claiming 15 months was a “best case” scenario, according to the outlet.
NASA announced this week that its Artemis III Moon Base I mission would blast off from the pad, and awarded Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, $280 million to deliver two lunar rovers.
But the firm’s inability to send spacecraft to the moon anytime soon will likely put it out of the running and delay the mission, according to theconversation.com.
The Blue Origin rocket burst into flames during the prelaunch — and seconds later exploded, sending flames and debris flying in a wild scene that looked like a nuclear blast.
The damaged pad was supposed to serve as a pathfinder for NASA’s Artemis III program.
“This setback means that Artemis III, and NASA’s entire lunar exploration program, is likely to be dependent on SpaceX for the time being,” Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor of Strategy and Security Studies, Air University, wrote.
“If SpaceX cannot get Starship ready in time, NASA may ultimately need to delay Artemis III until 2028.”
Despite a successful test run last week, SpaceX — and its founder Elon Musk — will need to make huge strides to have a Starship landing system ready to go by 2027, according to Whitman Cobb.
Blue Origin has not yet revealed the cause of the explosion, which caused no injuries.
The rocket cost $150 million to construct and Bezos has pledged to “rebuild whatever needs rebuilding.”
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