A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket took off from Texas on Tuesday, a success which marks the return to space of the American company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, more than a year after an accident.
Ten minutes after takeoff, the NS-24 mission capsule containing scientific equipment, not passengers, landed gently in the western American desert, according to a live video broadcast.
This return to space should make it possible to resume space tourism operations for Blue Origin, which has already taken 31 wealthy curious people for trips of a few minutes above the final frontier, including Jeff Bezos himself.
The rocket successfully took off in West Texas at 11:43 a.m. EST. And its reusable propulsion stage then landed safely less than 8 minutes later in the arid plains of the southern United States.
Takeoff, initially scheduled for Monday, had been postponed until the next day “due to a problem with the ground systems,” Blue Origin declared on X (formerly Twitter).
The NS-24 mission carried no one on board but carried scientific experiments, more than half of which were developed with the support of NASA.
The capsule containing this material landed, using parachutes, gently in the desert, 10 minutes after takeoff and after having exceeded the limit of space, flying for a few moments up to 107 kilometers above of the earth.
Accident in 2022
The accident which occurred in September 2022 resulted in the crash of the rocket’s propulsion stage, which was not carrying any passengers at the time.
An investigation was opened by the American aviation regulator (FAA), which concluded in September that the accident was caused by “a higher than expected operating temperature of the engine”.
The FAA had requested changes from the space company before flights could resume. These “corrective actions” notably included modifying the design of certain engine components.
The regulator confirmed to AFP that it had approved the modified flight license filed by Blue Origin.
New Horizons
The New Shepard rocket is made up of a propulsion stage and, at its top, the capsule carrying its cargo or passengers.
During the mission named NS-23, the capsule’s automatic ejection system was triggered and it fell to the ground slowed by its parachutes.
The main stage had been destroyed by hitting the ground, instead of landing in a controlled manner for reuse, as usual.
All the debris had fallen within the designated safety zone, the FAA noted in September.
Blue Origin competes in the niche of short space tourism flights with Virgin Galactic, a company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson and which operates in New Mexico. It completed its first commercial flight in August, taking off not with a vertical rocket, but from a huge carrier plane which then drops the spacecraft.
Blue Origin is also developing a heavy launcher, named New Glenn, whose first flight is planned for 2024. With its 98 meters high, the New Glenn rocket must be able to carry up to 45 tonnes into low Earth orbit – a completely different scale than New Shepard’s suborbital flights.