A New Glenn rocket owned by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin exploded on the launchpad in Florida during a test on Thursday night.

The explosion occurred around 9 p.m. during a test being conducted ahead of an upcoming launch.

Watch below:

“Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard,” Elon Musk commented.

More from The New York Times:

The test was to fire the seven engines in the booster stage, while keeping the rocket firmly held down on the launchpad. Flames began rising up the sides of the rocket and a massive explosion enveloped the launchpad.

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The fireball badly damaged the launchpad and surrounding equipment at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is the only launchpad that Blue Origin has for its 322-foot-tall New Glenn rocket, which is named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth. Repairs will most likely take months, at the least.

The rocket had been set to carry 48 satellites for Amazon’s internet constellation, Leo, an acronym for “low-Earth orbit.” Leo is a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink network. The Amazon satellites were not onboard.

“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,” Jeff Bezos said.

Additional footage below:

CBS News shared further:

The U.S. Space Force Eastern Range, which coordinates all launches from Florida, said in a statement that “emergency responders are on the scene. All personnel have been accounted for and there were no injuries/fatalities.

“Range officials, in coordination with Blue Origin and appropriate partners, are currently evaluating available data to determine the exact cause of the anomaly.

“Additional information will be released as it becomes available. The Eastern Range remains fully mission capable and continues to support operations at all other launch complexes.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in a reply to Blue Origin: “Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.”

It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016. The failure later was blamed on the rupture of a high-pressure helium tank inside the rocket’s upper stage liquid oxygen tank.

Falcon 9’s did not return to flight for three-and-a-half months and the pad was out of action for more than a year. In the meantime, the company relied on pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center for Florida launches and pad 4-East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

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Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test.

 

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