Blue Origin Emergency Aborts Flight Following ‘Anomaly'

After launch on Monday morning, Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket experienced a significant issue that required the emergency abort mechanism to eject the capsule away from the booster.

There were only research experiments on board in a series of suborbital flights to the edge of space and back, wrote The Washington Post.

Since Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos personally traveled on the first crewed trip last year, the firm he controls has flown multiple human missions and employs the New Shepard system to transport paying passengers.

How Blue Origin New Shepard Experienced Flight Anomaly

The flight on Monday took off at 10:27. EDT when the single-stage New Shepard booster's hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine roared to life, ramped up to maximum thrust, and launched the spacecraft into orbit from Blue Origin's west Texas launch pad.

When the rocket roared away early in the flight, everything seemed normal. However, one minute and four seconds later, the BE-3 exhaust plume slightly changed color, and an instant later, a huge explosion of flame erupted from the rocket's base.

CBS News said the New Shepard abort motor erupted in a split second, immediately propelling the capsule away from the damaged rocket.

The capsule took off as planned because the abort mechanism had been tested during a test flight in 2018; nevertheless, the spacecraft did not appear to be as stable atop the motor and wobbled back and forth before burning out.

The journey to Earth seemed to go normally after that. About a minute after the abort started, three small drogue parachutes were released to steady and decelerate the capsule. Then three main parachutes descended the spacecraft to a comparatively soft crash, creating a dust cloud in the west Texas desert.

(Photo : PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
A sign is displayed at an entrance to Blue Origin's Launch Site One outside of Van Horn, Texas on October 11, 2021. - Blue Origin is scheduled to launch the New Shepard NS-18 mission to space with passengers including actor William Shatner on October 13 from West Texas, near Van Horn.

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Later, Blue Origin acknowledged the booster's failure to launch on Monday.

"Booster failure on today's uncrewed flight," Blue Origin tweeted. "Escape system performed as designed."

We’re responding to an issue this morning at our Launch Site One location in West Texas. This was a payload mission with no astronauts on board. The capsule escape system functioned as designed. More information to come as it is available.
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) September 12, 2022

FAA to Examine Incident

The launch disaster will be looked at by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is in charge of overseeing commercial space operation safety. The FAA will assess if "any system, method, or practice linked to the disaster compromised public safety" before New Shepard can resume launching science missions or human clients.

"The anomaly that occurred triggered the capsule escape system. The capsule landed safely and the booster impacted within the designated hazard area," the FAA said in a statement (via Fox News).

FAA added it did not receive any reports of injuries or public property damage.

Launch abort systems are a feature of human spaceflight vehicles like the New Shepard rocket that automatically activate if a problem is detected during launch. It was the first mission in which New Shepard's emergency abort device was employed.

Blue Origin has carried 31 people into suborbital space using the same capsule and rocket technology, despite the fact that no passengers were aboard the Monday booster failure.

Space travelers may take 10-minute trips in Jeff Bezos' company's low-gravity habitat to experience some weightlessness and collect data for scientific payloads.