Blue Origin continues rebuilding LC-36, prepares testing alternatives for New Glenn second stage

Date:
Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:14:27 +0000

Description:
Two months after losing a New Glenn rocket to a pad explosion during a static The post Blue Origin continues rebuilding LC-36, prepares testing
alternatives for New Glenn second stage appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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Two months after losing a New Glenn rocket to a pad explosion during a static fire test, Blue Origin is racing to return the vehicle to flight before 2026 ends. The company is rebuilding its Florida launch site around an entirely
new concept of operations, and CEO Dave Limp is posting construction updates regularly as the clock ticks toward a self-imposed end-of-2026 return-to-flight.

Progress at the pad has kept coming this week. Limp announced Monday that crews had finished destacking the Vehicle Access Tower at Launch Complex 36. Destacking of the vehicle access tower is complete, Limp wrote, explaining that the top six modules were removed so teams can begin integrating fluids and controls as part of the new concept of operations, including cryogenic systems, pneumatics, and mechanisms. Before restacking the tower begins, access floors will be added, giving technicians platforms to work from during the fluids and controls integration phase of the project.



The most recent update came on July 30, when Limp said new doors are going up on the Integration Facility. Six panels on the buildings north side, each 27
m tall and massing about 18,143 kg, will combine for a door opening roughly
60 m wide once installed, and Limp said the south end of the building is getting the same treatment next. Destacking of the vehicle access tower is complete. We removed the top six modules to begin integrating fluids and controls as part of our new ConOps. This includes adding cryo systems, pneumatics, and mechanisms. Well also add in floors for access before we
begin re-stacking. pic.twitter.com/N4FfObKqTg

Dave Limp (@davill) July 27, 2026



That work is the latest step in recovery efforts that began the morning after the May 28 anomaly, when a New Glenn first stage exploded on Launch Complex
36 (LC-36), during a hotfire test ahead of the vehicles fourth launch. The blast destroyed the rocket and heavily damaged the site, toppling the lightning tower and destroying the transporter erector along with its hydraulic cylinders beyond repair.

The tank farm, the integration facility, the water tower, and the Vehicle Access Tower itself survived largely intact, giving Blue Origin a foundation to build from rather than starting over.

Rather than rebuild the transporter erector, Blue Origin is skipping straight to a horizontal-and-vertical hybrid concept of operations the company had already been developing for its larger 94 New Glenn variant, a heavier configuration with nine first-stage engines and four second-stage engines compared to the current vehicles seven and two.

Limp has said the approach was far enough along internally that adapting it for LC-36 saved months compared to replacing the transporter erector
outright.

Under the new plan, first and second stages will continue to be mated horizontally inside the integration facility. The combined stack then moves
to the pad on a simplified transporter, where a conventional crane lifts it into vertical position and lowers it onto the launch mount, a maneuver Blue Origin has described as the reverse of the operation it already uses to offload boosters from its recovery ship, Jacklyn , after landing.

Because the old transporter erector carried the launch mounts umbilical connections, the rebuild also calls for a new launch mount mounted to the repaired tower.



LC-36s debris cleanup took just nine days, and the hardware that survived inside the Horizontal Integration Facility, three second stages and the reflown booster Never Tell Me The Odds among them, has already made its way back to Blue Origins Exploration Park campus.

See Also LC-36 Rebuild Updates Blue Origin Section NSF Store Click Here to Join L2

What actually caused the explosion is still unclear. Limp has only said early analysis points toward the aft section of the first stage, with the full investigation still open. Company leadership hasnt wavered from the end-of-2026 target, though some outside observers have called that timeline ambitious given how long comparable pad rebuilds have historically taken.
NASA has been notably patient about it. Administrator Jared Isaacman called the recovery progress almost beyond impressive.

With LC-36 unavailable for integrated vehicle testing, Blue Origin has found
a workaround for at least one piece of New Glenns qualification work. NASA
and the company finalized an annex to a reimbursable Space Act Agreement this month to hot-fire New Glenns second stage, designated GS2, on the B-2
position of the Thad Cochran Test Stand at NASAs Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, with testing targeted to begin as early as this fall.

The GS2 will make the trip aboard Pegasus, the barge NASA has used to move
SLS core stages from Michoud to Stennis for Green Run testing. Pegasus is due at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in the second week of August, where it will
pick up a stage assembled at Blue Origins Exploration Park site before
heading west. B-2 has a storied history, having hosted rocket hardware headed for the Moon before: a dozen Saturn V first stages test-fired there between 1967 and 1970 ahead of crewed Apollo flights. The stand later ran the full Green Run test campaign for the Artemis I SLS core stage in 2020 and 2021.
The B-2 test stand at NASAs Stennis Space Center. (Credit: NASA)

We are proud to partner with NASA and build on our shared commitment to returning America to the Moon and our broader mission to build a road to
space for the benefit of Earth, Limp said of the arrangement. Stennis helped take Americans to the Moon, and through this partnership, it will help take
us back.

Also this week, Blue Origin filed four new FAA antenna structure
registrations for lightning protection poles at the Merritt Island Launch
Area (MILA), a KSC site on North Merritt Island near Blue Origins Exploration Park campus. The filings, submitted on July 17, describe four permanent steel mast structures roughly 42.7 m tall, each fitted with air terminals for lightning protection. That height rules out anything meant to support a fully stacked New Glenn.

However, a separate piece of hardware showed up on the Space Coast around the same time. Cameras caught Blue Origin unloading a compact transporter erector from an incoming barge at KSC, a smaller rig the company has previously used to move New Glenn second stages rather than fully assembled vehicles. Blue Origin has not explained either development.

Still, a test-scale transporter erector turning up at KSC in the same window as permit filings for lightning protection at an otherwise odd spot for
launch infrastructure invites a specific theory: that Blue Origin is quietly standing up its own second-stage test stand at MILA, separate from whatever comes out of the LC-36 rebuild. If true, it would allow the company to keep hot-firing GS2 hardware on the Space Coast no matter how long LC-36 takes to come back online. A barge with what appeared to be the components of the Blue Origin GS2 TE has arrived at the KSC turn basin. https://t.co/tANS0dWyIH pic.twitter.com/GQxQAAz1ma

NSF NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) July 22, 2026



The stakes of the anomaly reach well beyond New Glenn itself. Blue Origins uncrewed Blue Moon MK1 lander, named Endurance , finished environmental testing inside Thermal Vacuum Chamber A at NASAs Johnson Space Center earlier this year and is now the designated lander for NASAs first Moon Base mission at the lunar south pole. That flight was initially not expected to launch earlier than fall 2026, but now depends on New Glenns return to flight.

Endurance will attempt a landing near the Shackleton Connecting Ridge, and everything it proves there feeds directly into the larger crewed MK2 lander NASA selected for its Sustaining Lunar Development contract. Blue Moon MK1s precision landing system, which needs to put the vehicle within 100 m of its target, will see its first true test on the mission, as well as continuous downlink that will keep controllers in contact with the lander the whole way down.

A full-scale MK2 crew cabin mockup was delivered to Johnson Space Center this year for astronaut evaluation, and NASA has separately awarded Blue Origin $188 million to deliver a lunar rover using a MK1 lander by 2028, with two more MK1 flights planned to support Lunar Terrain Vehicles. Rendering of Blue Ring. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Further down the manifest, two other Blue Origin programs have continued advancing more quietly. Blue Origins orbital transfer vehicle, Blue Ring,
flew a pathfinder demonstration on New Glenns debut mission and is slated for its first operational flight in 2026 though this timeline has likely changed due to the New Glenn anomaly carrying Scout Spaces Owl space domain
awareness payload. Blue Ring is designed to reposition satellites, host payloads, and eventually support cislunar delivery.

Orbital Reef, the commercial space station Blue Origin is developing with Sierra Space under NASAs Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations program, has targeted a 2027 launch. However, that date depends on funding and milestones still ahead of the project. The European Space Agency signed a memorandum of understanding last year to explore collaboration on the project, and the station is designed to support ten or more crew in a growth configuration eventually.

None of this rebuilding is happening on a shoestring. Blue Origin closed a
$10 billion funding round earlier this month that pushed its valuation to roughly $130 billion, with the company saying the capital will help
accelerate New Glenn, Blue Moon, and Orbital Reef. The raise reflects how
much is riding on New Glenn specifically: Amazon has booked 12 Project Kuiper launches on the rocket with options for 15 more, and Blue Origin is also pursuing National Security Space Launch certification with the U.S. Space Force. AST SpaceMobile and other commercial customers are on the manifest
too, though an April launch left an AST BlueBird satellite in the wrong
orbit. That mishap prompted the FAA to require nine corrective actions before New Glenns next flight, on top of the corrective actions that come out of the May anomaly investigation.

(Lead image: LC-36 following New Glenns anomaly in late May. Credit: D Wise for NSF)



The post Blue Origin continues rebuilding LC-36, prepares testing
alternatives for New Glenn second stage appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/07/blue-origin-update-july26/


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