Blue Origin launches first New Shepard flight since grounding
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[December 20, 2023]
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard rocket lifted
off from Texas on Tuesday carrying research payloads, a company live
stream showed, in its first mission since a failure last year led to a
15-month grounding.
New Shepard, the company's only active rocket that can carry humans and
cargo on short trips to and from the brim of space, lifted off from Blue
Origin's remote Van Horn, Texas launch site at 10:42 a.m. CT (1642 GMT). |
A sign at the entrance to Billionaire Jeff Bezos's space company Blue
Origin a day before he will send "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, on
board the company's New Shepard rocket, into space from the company's
facilities near Van Horn, Texas, U.S., October 12, 2021. REUTERS/Mike
Blake/File Photo |
It
soared to space for a few minutes 66 miles (106 km) above ground
before its reusable rocket booster returned back to land in
tact, completing its ninth trip to space.
At peak altitude, the booster deployed 33 research experiments
encapsulated in a gumdrop-shaped pod, which also softly returned
to land under parachutes minutes later.
The mission marked New Shepard's 24th overall and first since
failing mid-flight last year because of a "structural failure"
in the rocket's engine nozzle that had been caused by excessive
heat blasting from the engine's combustion chamber, Blue Origin
has said.
That led to a 15-month grounding. The U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration, which oversees mishap investigations by private
rocket companies, required Blue Origin to redesign New Shepard's
engine before returning to flight.
Tuesday's mission lasted just over 10 minutes and marked Blue
Origin's first and likely only flight of the year.
In a statement after the mission, Blue Origin's senior vice
president of the New Shepard program, Phil Joyce, said the
company expects to increase New Shepard's launch rate in 2024
but did not provide details on when its next mission would be,
or if it would fly humans.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Mark Porter and Sandra
Maler)
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