Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket causes ‘nuclear bomb’ explosion in Florida

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had a ‘very rough day’ yesterday when his Blue Origin rocket exploded into a giant fireball on its launch pad in Florida during a test flight.

Footage of the shocking incident, which took place at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday night (28 May) and involved a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, is circulating on social media.

Videos show the rocket exploding into a humongous ball of fire, engulfing the area around it, with some people online likening it to a ‘nuclear bomb’.

The American businessman, 62, founded the space technology company in 2000, with its latest project being the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, which has lunar hopes of assisting NASA with bringing astronauts to the lunar surface and back up into lunar orbit.

However, it looks like there’s still work to be done, as the most recent test flight resulted in something you’d see in a disaster movie.

Here's our video of the explosion at Launch Complex 36. It happened about 9 pm ET (0100 UTC) as Blue Origin was beginning a static fire test of its New Glenn rocket.

Watch live views: https://t.co/tm2wZQmAVD pic.twitter.com/PmbgQC6Qmq

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) May 29, 2026

Following the dramatic incident, Bezos wrote on X: “All personnel are accounted for and safe. It’s too early to know the root cause, but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”

While the official Blue Origin X account described the explosion as an ‘anomaly,’ adding: “We experienced an anomaly during today's hotfire test.

“All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more.”

As reported by the BBC, the explosion took place at around 9pm local time at Cape Canaveral, and thankfully, there is no threat to the public, Brevard County Emergency Management confirmed.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman also released a statement on the matter, writing on social media that NASA is ‘aware of the anomaly that occurred tonight at Launch Complex 36 involving Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’.

He penned: “Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult.

“We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.

“We will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available.”

The BBC also reports that US Space Force officials are working with Blue Origin to evaluate the data and determine the exact cause of the ‘anomaly’.

In the meantime, social media users have been reacting to the astounding footage of the moment the rocket exploded.

One X user penned: “Jeff Bezos’ New Glenn rocket has EXPLODED into a MASSIVE fireball on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It literally looks like a NUCLEAR BOMB went off.”

While a second and third agreed: “Looks like a nuke went off,” and “This one is out of a movie. But glad no life was lost.”

And a fourth wrote: “I don't think I've ever seen a non-nuclear explosion this massive. I just feel terrible for them. Hoping it's better than it looks, but I can't imagine how...

Elon Musk even weighed in on X, simply penning: “Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard.”

Well, that’s one way to put it.