Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, hopes to resume rocket flights soon after an accident in September 2022 grounded its New Shepard suborbital rockets. While the company has completed an investigation into the incident, it awaits the acceptance of findings by US regulators. The investigation concluded that the anomaly was caused by a “thermo-structural failure of the engine nozzle,” leading to a “thrust misalignment” that triggered the capsule escape system. Blue Origin expects to return to flight soon, re-flying the same NS-23 payloads. The capsule and its payload landed safely, thanks to the escape system that “worked as designed.” Blue Origin has flown 32 people, some as paying customers and others as guests, since July 2021, when Bezos himself took part in the first flight.
Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, aims to resume rocket flights soon after an accident in September 2022 grounded its New Shepard suborbital rockets. While the company has completed an investigation into the incident, it awaits the acceptance of findings by US regulators. Blue Origin’s NS-23 capsule had carried a scientific payload on top of a single booster. As the rocket climbed, a technical issue caused an anomaly, leading to the capsule initiating its escape sequence and falling back to Earth, slowed by parachutes. The booster, however, “impacted the ground” instead of landing upright. An investigation with oversight from the regulatory Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ensued, with the FAA currently reviewing Blue Origin’s mishap report. Blue Origin attributes the anomaly to a “thermo-structural failure of the engine nozzle” leading to a “thrust misalignment,” and it expects to return to flight soon, using the same NS-23 payloads. The capsule and its payload landed safely, thanks to the escape system that “worked as designed.”
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