Months after Blue Origin The New Shepard booster caught firethe company released a report identifying the cause of the rocket anomaly that halted its operations.
As a result of its investigations into the rocket failure, Blue Origin has identified A “thermo-structural failure of the engine nozzle “as the reason why its not screwed The New Shepard rocket suffered a failure in September 2022, the company wrote in a Press release Friday. The booster motor nozzle overheated due to rising temperatures which caused “thermal damage and heat trails,” according to Blue Origin.
by Jeff Bezos the private space company will take corrective action and implement design changes in hopes of being able to fly its rockets again soon. The Federal Aviation Administration had suspended launches of New Shepard following the rocket failure, but Blue Origin “expects to resume flight soon,” the company wrote in its press release.
Blue Origin wants to relaunch the same payload that was on the New Shepard rocket when it went up in flames. Fortunately, the capsule that was attached to the rocket was using its escape system, bringing it, along with the NS-23 payloads, to safety using a parachute.
The New Shepard rocket launched on September 12, 2022, carrying 36 payloads, more than half of which belonged to NASA. About a minute after liftoff, the New Shepard booster exploded in midair and its capsule abandoned ship. The booster failure occurred while the rocket was traveling at over 700 miles per hour (1,130 kilometers per hour) and while it was 29,000 feet (8,840 meters) above the ground.
G/O Media may receive a commission
The incident marked an unusual anomaly for an otherwise reliable rocket, which has completed six crewed flights since July 2021. New Shepard normally escorts people to the edge of space, with the crewed capsule reaching an altitude of 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface. before returning to Earth using a parachute.
The booster failure may have led to the grounding of New Shepard, but Blue Origin seems determined to get its rocket booster off the ground for the second round of trying to deliver its science and technology payloads.
For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on Twitter and score Gizmodo’s dedicated spaceflight page.
