The launch was Blue Origin’s first since an engine nozzle failed in September 2022, triggering a dramatic in-flight abort.
Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, successfully launched an unpiloted New Shepard capsule to the edge of space and back Tuesday, the first flight of the sub-orbital spacecraft since a booster failure last year triggered a dramatic abort.
No passengers were on board for the 2022 flight and while the booster was destroyed, the spacecraft, carrying a variety of microgravity experiments, landed safely. Engineers eventually blamed the mishap on a about a minute after liftoff.
The nozzle was redesigned, and Blue Origin put it to the test Tuesday at the company’s West Texas launch site, firing up the booster’s hydrogen-burning BE-3 engine a 11:42 a.m. EST. After throttling up to full power, the booster lifted off and accelerated skyward atop a brilliant jet of flaming exhaust.
Blue Origin did not say whether the capsule launched Tuesday was the same one that safely aborted after the September 12, 2022, mishap. But like that flight, the capsule launched Tuesday was again loaded with more than 30 microgravity experiments provided by NASA, academia and private industry.
