Leroy Chiao

It's probably going to take at least a year and probably longer before they can start operating again.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Great to be here.

Sure.

They were setting up to do a static hot fire test.

And basically what that is, is you're lighting up all the engines, you're testing the engines with the rocket securely held down on the launch pad.

You're checking the propellant system, you know, the propellant delivery, everything.

And this is just something you do before you actually go launch, try to launch a satellite or something else.

And so they're preparing for that test.

Something went wrong, obviously very wrong.

And, you know, it was a catastrophic failure.

The whole rocket exploded.

And even worse than losing the rocket, it really, really damaged the launch pad.

And that's the only launch pad they had for launching the New Glenn rocket.

Blue Origin had gotten the permission to modify that launch pad, that launch complex, specifically for New Glenn.

They have plans to do more, but that's the only one they had completed so far.

Yeah, so that's a pretty big loss for Blue Origin.

Yes, NASA had very recently awarded contracts to Blue Origin to build rovers that astronauts would eventually use and could also operate autonomously on the surface of the moon.

They also, of course, Blue Origin has been working for a number of years, as has SpaceX, on a lander to take humans, to take Americans back to the surface of the moon.

So this puts all of that a little bit in jeopardy because all the Blue Origin's vehicles were supposed to launch aboard New Glenn.