The company’s response to the launchpad blast has become a key test for Artemis III

As Blue Origin tells it, the most spectacular launchpad explosion in recent memory, which destroyed its pioneering New Glenn space rocket last month and severely damaged almost everything around it, was merely a blip.

“We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter,” Dave Limp, the company’s chief executive, posted on X on 1 June, using the Latin form of its motto, “Step by step, ferociously”.