Blue Origin has finished reassembling the launch tower at Launch Complex 36A at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company installed the final segment of the 430-foot tower at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. CEO Dave Limp wrote on X on October 24th that the Vehicle Access Tower “is fully assembled, with every module repaired and back in place.”

Module 9 done. Standing tall again at LC-36! The Vehicle Access Tower is fully assembled, with every module repaired and back in place. This was a monumental effort. Proud of Team Blue. pic.twitter.com/dSI2ENcU0H

— Dave Limp (@davill) October 24, 2026

Earlier this year, on May 28th, a New Glenn first stage exploded during a pre-launch static fire, destroying the vehicle and severely damaging the company’s only operational New Glenn launch site. Early speculation suggested the tower might have to be torn down and replaced, but Limp said the company would repair it on site instead. Work began June 25th, less than a month later.

Crews did not simply patch the structure. Limp said the quickest route was to take down most of the tower’s modules, repair and upgrade them on the ground at the same time and then restack them. Since summer, teams have added new floors, guard rails for worker access and the ground equipment needed to move cryogenic propellant up the tower.

There’s Much More Work Left

With the tower restacked, Blue Origin still has to install the equipment that connects the pad to the rocket. That includes the umbilicals that feed the vehicle and the platforms that let workers reach the payload fairing. The tower also needs its new propellant lines connected, since it now does the fueling job the transporter-erector used to handle.

At the base of the pad, crews need to replace the launch mount that fell into the flame trench after the May explosion. The lightning tower toppled in the explosion, and Blue Origin has not said how it will be replaced.

The lightning tower toppled in the explosion, and Blue Origin has not said how, or if, it will be replaced.

That and thousands of other details, large and small, must be addressed before the site is ready for its last step: all-up testing. Crews will load the rocket with super-cold propellant to prove out the rebuilt pad, then fire the engines on the spot where the May explosion happened.

In an update at “Artemis III And Beyond” in Huntsville, on October 26th, Blue Origin’s Senior VP of Lunar Permanence, John Couluris, said pad activation is expected in “early- to mid-December” and “we’re still holding to our first launch by the end of the year.”

Stay Tuned.