Blue Origin is aiming to lastly conclude a greater than 15-month pause in operations of its New Shepard suborbital rocket, with the corporate saying at the moment that it’ll fly an uncrewed mission as early as December 18.
The corporate confirmed the launch on its social media account following a Bloomberg report of an inner e mail on the brand new focused date. The mission, referred to as NS-24, will carry 33 science and analysis payloads and different cargo.
New Shepard has been grounded since September 2022, when a difficulty with an engine nozzle triggered an auto-abort, which launched the uncrewed capsule from the booster. The capsule landed safely; the booster was destroyed when it crashed again to Earth. (That mission was additionally uncrewed.)
The Federal Aviation Administration formally concluded its investigation into the mishap in September, instructing Blue Origin to implement 21 corrective actions, together with redesigning the engine and nozzle parts in addition to “organizational changes.”
This new launch date signifies that Blue Origin has applied all of the actions and obtained its modified launch license from the FAA. In accordance with the regulator’s web site, the modified license will expire in August 2025 and is proscribed to launches from Blue Origin’s West Texas services solely.
Whereas Blue Origin has many bold tasks beneath improvement — together with a heavy-lift rocket referred to as New Glenn, which the corporate goals to fly late subsequent 12 months, and a lunar lander referred to as Blue Moon, which has solicited a $3.4 billion contract from NASA — the New Shepard flight program is the one program that’s presently operational. Thus far, the automobile has flown greater than 22 instances, and has taken 31 folks to the sting of house and again (including CEO Jeff Bezos himself).
