Blue Origin rocket suffers problem during uncrewed launch

[Nikola Bijeliti]

Blue Origin rocket suffers problem during uncrewed launch

Blue Origin suffers in-flight abort, capsule lands back in Texas

Blue Origin suffers in-flight abort, capsule lands back in Texas

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket suffered a serious problem after lifting off Monday morning, forcing the vehicle’s emergency abort system to jettison the capsule away from the booster.

No people were on board — only science experiments — in what was supposed to be another in a series of suborbital flights to the edge of space and back. The company, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, also uses the New Shepard system to fly paying customers and has flown several human missions since Bezos himself flew on the first crewed flight last year. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Leading up to the launch, Blue Origin flight controllers called a series of holds, delaying the flight. It lifted off shortly before 10:30 a.m. Eastern from the company’s launch site in Van Horn, Tex. After clearing the launch tower, it entered what is known as “Max Q,” or the moment when aerodynamic pressure is greatest on the vehicle as it pushes through the atmosphere on the way to space.

Suddenly, at about 1 minutes 5 seconds into flight, bright flames burst from the booster and the capsule’s emergency abort system kicked in, quickly shooting it away from the rocket. The capsule’s parachutes later deployed, and it landed softly in the West Texas desert.

[Ray Allan]

Unplanned test of the emergency abort system as the rocket had a RUD (Rapid Unplanned Disassembly).