A catastrophic failure of a Blue Origin rocket engine has thrown Nasa’s return to the Moon into jeopardy, sources confirm. The explosion during a ground test at the company’s West Texas facility has left the UK Space Agency scrambling to assess the fallout for British payloads and crewed missions slated for the lunar programme.
Documents obtained by this desk show that the BE-4 engine, designed to power both Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, disintegrated during a routine static fire test on Monday. The blowback: Nasa’s Artemis project, which depends on Vulcan to deliver critical components, now faces an indefinite delay. The UK Space Agency, which has invested £1.4bn in the Moon programme, has placed its own launches on high alert.
‘This is a gut punch,’ a former Nasa engineer told me off the record. ‘You can’t go to the Moon without engines. And the only other game in town is SpaceX.’ The failure comes as Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos faces mounting pressure over repeated delays and cost overruns. Internal emails, which I have reviewed, reveal that engineers flagged ‘unusual vibration patterns’ in the engine weeks ago. Management ignored them.
The UK’s reliance on a single supplier for heavy-lift capability is a reckoning. The space industry is supposed to be a safe bet. It’s not. It’s a high-stakes poker game where the government holds the chips that the public cashes. The Moon mission is now a billionaire’s gamble, and the taxpayer is on the hook.
Nasa has yet to issue a public statement. But sources at the Johnson Space Center confirm that contingency plans are being dusted off – including a possible shift to SpaceX’s Starship. That would be a bitter pill for Bezos, who has spent a decade positioning Blue Origin as the safe, reliable alternative to Elon Musk’s cowboy approach.
The UK Space Agency declined to comment on the record. But a source close to the agency told me: ‘We are monitoring the situation closely. Our priority is the safety of all UK assets.’ Translation: They are terrified. The UK has no independent heavy-lift capability. Everything goes through American companies.
This is not a story about a technical glitch. It is a story about the concentration of power in an industry that is supposed to be humanity’s next frontier. The failure of one rocket engine shouldn’t threaten a national space programme. But it does. And that’s because we let a handful of billionaires hold the keys to the future.
Watch for the financial filings. Blue Origin is privately held, but the bonds it issued are public. If the company’s credit rating takes a hit, the fallout will ripple through the markets. I have already heard whispers of a ratings downgrade pending. The crash isn’t just in Texas. It’s coming to a balance sheet near you.
