Blue Origin suffered a mishap Monday throughout an uncrewed launch of its New Shepard capsule.
A rocket failure roughly a minute after liftoff pressured the corporate to carry out an emergency abort midflight, triggering the spacecraft’s escape system. The capsule, which had no people on board, was seen jettisoning from the booster throughout a livestream of the launch, earlier than a collection of parachutes have been deployed.
Blue Origin officers confirmed the launch anomaly on Twitter, including that the escape system “carried out as designed.”
It is not but identified what prompted the rocket failure, however the firm stated it’s wanting into the difficulty. “Extra info to return as it’s obtainable,” officials tweeted Monday.
The mission, often called NS-23, was carrying 36 payloads and experiments from varied analysis establishments on an supposed suborbital flight to the sting of house and again. The rocket lifted off at round 10:36 a.m. EDT from Blue Origin’s devoted launch web site in West Texas, close to Van Horn.
The corporate, based by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, conducts cargo-only missions in addition to house tourism flights utilizing its New Shepard capsule and rocket.
Monday’s launch marked the twenty third flight of New Shepard. Each the capsule and booster are reusable, but it surely’s not but identified if the rocket survived intact.
Blue Origin has performed six suborbital missions to this point with people on board. Its first crewed flight, in July 2021, carried Bezos and three different passengers to the sting of house. Blue Origin’s most up-to-date house tourism flight occurred Aug. 4, however Monday’s launch was the primary cargo-only mission for the corporate since final yr.
