NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on Monday that it will “take some serious time” to restore a launchpad damaged during a recent Blue Origin rocket explosion, underscoring the scale of repairs needed following the incident.

The explosion occurred on Thursday during a hot-fire test of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket at a United States Space Force launch facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The vehicle, developed by Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin, erupted into a fireball while on the pad, raising fresh concerns about timelines for upcoming launch operations.

Following the incident, Bezos, confirmed that all personnel on site were safe and pledged that the company would rebuild, describing the episode as a “very rough day.”

Speaking in an interview at the CEO Council Summit, Isaacman said a 2028 timeframe is “within the realm” of possibility for restoring the damaged launch infrastructure, signaling that recovery efforts could stretch over several years, according to CNBC.

“We’re all getting organised generally around the idea that we certainly want to see Blue Origin be very successful,” Isaacman said. “So recovering, getting the pad recovered, providing subject matter expertise, root cause analysis for sure. Let’s figure out what’s broken, and then we got to keep moving forward.”

Isaacman, Bezos, and Dave Limp visited the damaged launchpad on Friday and spoke with employees of the space company following the incident.

In a post on X on Saturday, Limp said Blue Origin has regained partial access to the launch site and has already begun outlining a rebuilding plan after the explosion that occurred during a New Glenn hot-fire test at Cape Canaveral.

The visit comes as the company works to assess damage and chart a recovery path following the setback, which has disrupted operations at the Space Force facility in Florida.

Meanwhile, NASA maintains several contracts with Blue Origin under its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028 and relies on commercial partners to support key lunar mission components.