by Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on exciting discoveries, scientific advances and more.
Blue Origin’s tourist rocket – designed to take paying customers on short trips to the edge of space – will return to flight on Monday after the company founded by Jeff Bezos spent more than a year recovering from a failed unmanned test flight.
The rocket, New Shepard, is expected to launch on an unmanned science mission at 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) from Blue Origin’s facilities on a private farm in West Texas. The company will stream the event on its website.
Although no one will be on board the flight, Blue Origin may be able to resume its trips to space for thrill seekers.
The New Shepard rocket and spacecraft were set to launch a batch of scientific instruments on September 12, 2022. Just one minute into flight, the rocket experienced Max Q – an aerospace term that refers to the moment of maximum stress on a vehicle in a reasonable manner. low altitude where the atmosphere is still quite thick, and the rocket moves at almost the speed of sound.
Around that time, the rocket seemed to release a huge burst of flames. The New Shepard capsule, which rides on top of the rocket, then initiated its launch-inhibition system – firing a small engine to safely blast itself away from the malfunctioning rocket. That system worked as intended, parachuting the capsule to a safe landing.
Blue Origin later revealed that the cause of the failure was a problem with the engine’s nozzle, a large cone that directs the flaming exhaust at the bottom of the rocket. On-board computers accurately detected the failure and shut down the engine, according to the company.
No injuries were reported on the ground, and Blue Origin said the science payloads and capsule could be flown again.
But the rocket, left without a functioning engine, smashed back into the ground and was completely destroyed. Normally after launching a New Shepard, the rocket booster guides itself back to a safe landing just so it can be flown again.
During an interview Thursday with podcaster Lex Fridman, Bezos said the escape system that sent the capsule to safety was the most difficult piece of engineering in the entire rocket — but “it’s because I’m comfortable letting anybody go on New Shepard. “
“The (rocket) booster is as safe and reliable as we can make it,” Bezos added. “The power density is so huge that you can never be sure that nothing will go wrong. … So the only way to improve safety is to have an escape system.
“A tourist vehicle has to be designed in my opinion … to be as safe as it can be,” he said. “You can’t do it safely. It’s impossible.”
What went wrong
Before the September 2022 failure, the New Shepard rocket had flown 22 consecutive successful missions – including six with passengers on board. Bezos flew aboard the rocket in 2021.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which authorizes commercial rocket launches and is responsible for ensuring public safety, oversaw an investigation into the failure. The probe revealed that the engine nozzle failed because it had higher temperatures than the company expected.
To fix the issue, Blue Origin said it implemented “design changes to the combustion chamber” — the area of the engine where fuel explosively mixes with an oxidizer — and changed “operating parameters,” or the data the company uses to model safe flights.
“Further design changes to the nozzle improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads,” the company said in a statement in March.
The FAA formally concluded the disaster investigation on September 27, outlining 21 “corrective actions” that Blue Origin must implement before it can return to flight. The agency did not disclose details of those actions, noting in the report that it “contains proprietary data and US Export Control information and is not available for public release.”
A new Glenn on the horizon
New Shepard returns to flight as Blue Origin races to deliver another flagship project: It’s developing a giant rocket called New Glenn that will be able to haul satellites and other large payloads into orbit.
That rocket is years overdue. And the same engines that will power the New Glenn rocket booster, the BE-4 engines, will also power a new line of rockets developed by United Launch Alliance – a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket is set to launch its first mission, delivering a NASA-sponsored lander to the moon, in January.
Likewise, New Glenn is the first important launch into the sky, and could carry a NASA satellite to study the magnetized area of space around Mars as early as next year.
Bezos admitted during a podcast interview last week that he was “extremely nervous” about New Glenn’s first launch.
“Every launch I go to for New Shepard, for other vehicles as well, I’m always nervous about these launches,” he said. “The first launch – no nerves about that – would be a sign.”
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
