Blue Origin announces 1st space launch after accident – 12/12/2023 – Science

The space company Blue Origin, owned by American billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced this Tuesday (12) that it plans to launch a new mission on its New Shepard rocket into space next week, the first since the accident with this unmanned vehicle in September 2022.

“We are targeting a launch window beginning December 18th for our next New Shepard cargo mission,” which will contain 33 scientific and research payloads, as well as 33,000 postcards, the company wrote on X (formerly Twitter ).

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concluded its investigation into the accident in September and ordered the company to take “21 corrective actions” before resuming launches.

In its report, the air regulator states that an engine nozzle failure, caused by higher than expected temperatures, caused the New Shepard rocket to crash shortly after launch, although the capsule carrying research experiments escaped and returned. safely to Earth.

“During the accident, systems onboard the launch vehicle detected the anomaly, aborted the operation, separated the capsule from the propulsion module as planned, and shut down the engine,” the FAA said.

The fact that the capsule was ejected immediately suggests that any crew would have been safe.

In total, Blue Origin has carried out six flights with crew — some paid and others invited — since July 2021, with Bezos himself in the first group.

While Blue Origin was unable to fly, British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic remained active and carried out five commercial flights this year.

Both companies compete in the emerging space tourism sector, offering a few minutes of zero gravity in “suborbital” space.

Virgin Galactic tickets were sold for between US$200,000 and US$450,000 (between R$990,000 and R$2.22 million). Blue Origin does not publicly reveal its prices.

Bezos, founder of online commerce giant Amazon, resigned as the company’s chief executive in 2021. In addition to his foray into the space tourism market, he also owns the newspaper The Washington Post.