A powerful New Glenn rocket owned by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin blew up on the launchpad Thursday, sending huge billowing clouds of fire, smoke and flaming debris into the night sky in a tremendous conflagration visible for miles around.

The explosion occurred around 9 pm EDT as engineers were counting down to a brief test firing of the rocket’s seven methane-fueled BE-4 first stage engines at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Blue Origin was gearing up for a June launch to put a batch of four dozen Amazon “Leo” internet satellites into orbit.

Ars Technica said it is “possibly the most dramatic and powerful rocket explosion since the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket was destroyed during a launch attempt in 1969.” There was no immediate indication as to what caused the rocket to fail so spectacularly. “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it,” Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”

He also said that “personnel are accounted for and safe.” It’s great news that one was injured during the failure, but Blue Origin sources said the explosion caused extensive damage to the company’s large and complex launch site, of course. During a pad failure in 2016, with the smaller Falcon 9 rocket, it took SpaceX more than a year to rebuild its seriously damaged Space Launch Complex-40 pad.

Space Force officials said the explosion would not affect upcoming launches by other companies from other pads. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket is due to blast off later tonight with a batch of Amazon’s satellites, the same kind that this rocket was supposed to take up. But experts believe the failure will affect NASA’s moon plans, which already include little margin for error.

Iran fired a missile at an American air base in Kuwait on Thursday just hours after the United States attacked the Islamic Republic, with both sides accusing the other of violating their shaky ceasefire and further imperiling diplomatic efforts to end the war. Kuwait shot down the ballistic missile, the American and Kuwaiti militaries said. No damage or casualties were reported.

Hours earlier, President Donald Trump signaled that an agreement between the two sides wasn’t close and that he would not be rushed by either international economic pressure or the political pressure of upcoming midterm elections. However, the Associated Press reports that negotiators reached a tentative agreement late Thursday to extend the ceasefire in the 3-month-old war by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Senior U.S. officials acknowledged the framework deal and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the White House that the tentative agreement is “multifaceted” and awaiting Trump’s potential approval. He added that “nothing is going to be on the table” until Iranian officials first agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows out of the Middle East and into the global economy.

Waymo has started offering rides to select passengers in its new Ojai robotaxi, the first vehicle purpose-built for autonomous ride-hailing rather than retrofitted from an existing car. I guess this was bound to happen, but part of the appeal of Waymo has been the luxe Jaguar I-PACE SUVs, right?

The Ojai replaces the Jag and is a boxier, roomier vehicle with a lower step-in height, a higher ceiling, and a removable steering wheel. The interior is designed for passengers rather than drivers, reflecting the fact that nobody is supposed to sit behind the wheel. Made in China, it’s more economical and uses 13 cameras, four lidar units, and six radar sensors, a 42% reduction in total sensor count compared with the 29 cameras on the fifth-generation I-PACE fleet. Practical, sure, but the pale blue vans are certainly less sexy. But they’ll start picking up members of the public in California and Arizona in the next few weeks.