BLUE ORIGIN LAUNCH UPDATE

No people would be aboard for that flight. But Blue Origin’s vice president of commercial and international sales, Ariane Cornell, said at last week’s Satellite 2023 conference that the company was “looking to get back into flight with New Shepard by the end of this year.”īlue Origin said the payloads that were in the capsule for last September’s failed flight - half of which were funded by NASA - survived the mishap intact and would be re-flown.

BLUE ORIGIN LAUNCH UPDATE

Today’s update gave no schedule for future flights, other than to say that they’d resume soon. (Blue Origin Photos)īlue Origin said it’s implementing corrective actions, “including design changes to the combustion chamber and operating parameters, which have reduced engine nozzle bulk and hot-streak temperatures.” The company said other nozzle design changes have improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads. The inset photo at right focuses on a recovered fragment of New Shepard’s engine nozzle. Blue Origin said if there had been crew members aboard, they would have had a safe but rocky ride.Īn aerial photo at left shows the terrain at Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. As was the case for that earlier failure, last September’s mishap led to the loss of the rocket booster, but the capsule that would have held crew was recovered safely. They will join crewmates Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries for the flight which lifts off from Launch Site One on October 12. There were also more than a dozen uncrewed flights, many of which carried research payloads.īlue Origin’s only other New Shepard failure occurred during the first test flight of the suborbital launch system in 2015. Today, Blue Origin announced actor William Shatner and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Mission & Flight Operations, will fly on board New Shepard NS-18. “FAA approval is required to close the investigation and for the New Shepard System to return to flight.”īefore the failure of the uncrewed research mission, known as NS-23, Blue Origin had flown 31 customers and special guests (including Bezos and his brother Mark, and Star Trek actor William Shatner) on six crewed suborbital trips. “The agency is currently reviewing the company’s submission of its mishap report,” it said. In an emailed statement, the FAA said the investigation “remains open.” All of the debris from the mishap was recovered within the designated hazard area.įlights have been suspended during Blue Origin’s investigation, which was conducted by a team including representatives from NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board with oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration. No one was injured on the ground, and there was no damage to ground-based systems. No people were aboard New Shepard during last year’s launch from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. The redesigned New Shepard spaceship will re-fly the payloads that were part of the uncrewed mission that went awry.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says a launch anomaly that forced the suspension of its suborbital spaceflights last September was caused by a structural failure of the rocket engine’s nozzle.Ĭorrective actions are being taken, and flights are expected to resume “soon,” Blue Origin said today. “Before the New Shepard vehicle can return to flight, the FAA will determine whether any system, process or procedure related to the mishap affected public safety.”īloomberg writer Alan Levin contributed to this report.The booster for Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship flares during last year’s ascent. “No injuries or public property damage have been reported,” the FAA said, noting the booster landed within a designated “hazard” area.

The FAA, which licenses commercial launches, said in a statement Monday that it would oversee the investigation of the New Shepard “mishap.” The FAA reviews incidents on space flights, but Congress has prevented it from enacting safety regulations beyond protecting uninvolved bystanders. In December, the FAA cleared Blue Origin after conducting a review of the company’s safety culture. In September, a group of current and former Blue Origin employees penned a collective essay accusing the company of a toxic work environment, as well as alleging safety issues. Blue Origin has routinely flown passengers on New Shepard since July 2021, when the company launched Bezos, its founder, to space. This was the first all-payload New Shepard flight for Blue Origin since August 2021.

The booster has had a nearly perfect flight record until now, save for one partial failure early in its testing campaign. Blue Origin SpaceX-Private Crew

Sen Bernie Sanders delivers a speech on the Senate floor asking for a

A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches from.

The New Shepard is a reusable vehicle, and the booster is designed to land upright after a successful launch. This was the ninth planned flight of this particular New Shepard booster.

Blue origin launch