Why Blue Origin chose methane for New Glenn—and what went wrong
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral in May 2026, raising questions about methane fuel's volatility versus its engineering advantages.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral on 28 May 2026. The incident has refocused attention on a design choice that underpins modern reusable rocketry: methane fuel.
Unlike the Apollo missions and earlier crewed space rockets, which relied on liquid hydrogen, both SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn use methane—the simplest hydrocarbon, composed of a single carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. The shift reflects an engineering trade-off between efficiency and practicality.
Why the switch from hydrogen?
Liquid hydrogen offers an unmatched power-to-weight ratio. When hydrogen gas reacts with oxygen, it produces water and enormous amounts of energy, making it exceptionally efficient at moving mass off Earth's surface. The space shuttle main engines and Apollo rockets exploited this advantage.
But hydrogen comes with severe drawbacks. The molecules are so small they can seep through the walls of most fuel tanks, requiring expensive, specialised materials to prevent leakage. To use hydrogen as fuel, engineers must liquify it by cooling it to minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 250 degrees Celsius)—a process that is costly and time-consuming. Filling the rocket's tanks with liquified hydrogen must be done slowly to prevent the fuel from clogging fuel lines, adding further expense.
Methane must still be liquified and kept cold, but cooling it to minus 260°F (minus 162°C) is considerably less expensive than the deep cryogenic requirements for hydrogen.
The methane advantage—and its risks
SpaceX and Blue Origin opted for methane to sidestep these complications. While methane still requires liquification and cryogenic temperatures, the engineering burden is significantly lighter than with hydrogen. The fuel is easier to handle and more convenient to manage on a launchpad.
Yet as the New Glenn explosion illustrates, convenience carries a cost. Methane is more volatile than hydrogen under certain conditions. According to reporting analysed by physical chemists, methane's chemical properties—while offering practical benefits for reusable rocketry—make it inherently more explosive in accident scenarios.
What happens next
The New Glenn incident is likely to prompt detailed investigation into the fuel-handling procedures, tank design, and pre-launch protocols specific to methane. Industry analysts will weigh whether the economic and logistical gains from switching to methane justify the heightened explosion risk, or whether additional safeguards are needed.