Ever since the first successful suborbital flight of its New Shepard spacecraft and rocket, Blue Origin has been leading a charmed life. The company, founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has launched and safely landed its reusable vehicle five times. It has splashily announced a forthcoming orbital rocket, New Glenn. And Bezos himself has racked up a number of aerospace awards for his accomplishments.

But on Sunday Blue Origin announced a setback. "We lost a set of powerpack test hardware on one of our BE-4 test stands yesterday," the company tweeted. "Not unusual during development." The company declined to provide more information about the accident to Ars, but most likely the powerpack—that is, the turbines and pumps that provide the fuel-oxidizer mix into the combustion chamber of the rocket engine—exploded.

It is not clear whether the test stand itself sustained serious damage (the company has at least two stands at its rocket engine testing facilities near Van Horn, Texas), nor whether the engine hardware was being pushed to some kind of limit, or whether this was part of routine testing as Blue Origin moves toward a full-scale engine test. Also, while no details were released, Blue Origin added that it expects engine testing to resume "soon."

The fact that Blue Origin, a relatively secretive company, shared this information at all is a bit revealing. Notably, it suggests the company continues to take steps toward openness. This is the first time it has ever publicly shared information about technical problems during the development of any hardware.

No lasting effects

This appears unlikely to be a major stumbling block for Blue Origin, unless the failure has exposed some fundamental flaw with the BE-4 engine design—which seems a low probability. Rather, such accidents are a common part of engine testing. High pressures and combustible fuels are inherently an explosive mix. And as the company is well capitalized due to Bezos' deep pockets, it has redundant sets of engine hardware both at the test site and in development at its Washington-based headquarters, which means it can fix the problem and move forward.

Additionally, this accident should have no bearing on the company's plans to move forward with test flights of New Shepard later this summer or early this fall. That launch vehicle uses the smaller BE-3 engine, which is well-tested. Commercial suborbital flights of New Shepard could begin as early as 2018.

The BE-4 engine, about five times more powerful than the BE-3, is being counted on to power Blue Origin's large New Glenn rocket, which could fly as early as 2019 or 2020. Major US launch provider United Launch Alliance is also closely watching the development of the BE-4 engine, because if tests are successful, Colorado-based ULA plans to select the BE-4 engine to power its next generation Vulcan launch vehicle.

In an interview with Ars last month, Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson said the company would not rush into full-scale testing of the BE-4 engine. "We’ll test it when we’re ready, and that could be weeks away, or a few months away," he said. Powerpack tests are a precursor to full-scale tests of the entire engine, so with the latest setback we can probably safely assume Blue Origin remains a few months away.