An unmanned flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket ended in failure shortly following liftoff on Monday, September 12, from Launch Site One in West Texas, USA. The capsule, packed with science and technology payloads, managed to survive an apparent thruster malfunction, and the launch escape system successfully functioned as designed.
The booster anomaly occurred just over a minute following the rocket’s launch at 10:27 a.m. ET. Blue Origin’s live stream showed the rocket during MaxQ, the moment of maximum aerodynamic stress for a rocket, but flight deteriorated rapidly following that, with the booster engulfed in flames. The camera then switched to a close-up view of the capsule, which ejected from the booster as a result of the anomaly (I assume this was an automatic camera switch, as Blue Origin probably doesn’t want us to see their booster rockets explode). in full flight).
The booster failure occurred when the rocket was traveling at more than 1,130 kilometers per hour and while it was 8,840 meters above the ground. “We are responding to an issue this morning at our Launch Site One location in West Texas,” tweeted Blue Origin. “The capsule’s exhaust system worked as designed.” We contacted Blue Origin for more information and confirmation that the propellant was missing. A spokesperson said that Blue Origin will provide updates via their Twitter as information becomes available.
Blue Origin’s NS-23 mission was originally supposed to launch on August 31, but bad weather caused it to be delayed. New Shepard normally takes tourists on suborbital flights into space, taking them just beyond the Kármán Line, the official demarcation point that separates Earth’s atmosphere from outer space. The Jeff Bezos-led company has flown 31 humans into space and made six manned flights since July 2021, the most recent on August 4, but that mission involved a different booster and capsule than the one used on the mission. from today.
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Para la misión NS-23, New Shepard debía transportar 36 cargas útiles, de las cuales más de la mitad pertenecen a la NASA, a alturas superiores a los 100 kilómetros. El exitoso aterrizaje asistido por paracaídas de la cápsula sugiere que estos artículos sobrevivieron al percance de hoy, pero aún estamos esperando confirmación al respecto. Dicho esto, es probable que dos cargas útiles no sobrevivieran, ya que estaban conectadas al propulsor y diseñadas para medir el entorno espacial justo fuera del cohete. De las 36 cargas útiles involucradas en NS-23, 24 son de escuelas primarias, universidades y organizaciones enfocadas en STEM, incluyendo el Instituto Estadounidense de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica (AIAA) y la Sociedad Estadounidense de Investigación Gravitacional y Espacial (ASGSR).
Esta cápsula, denominada RSS H.G. Wells, solo se utiliza para misiones no tripuladas y se dedica al envío de carga y equipos de investigación en vuelos suborbitales. El propulsor reutilizable, conocido como Tail 3, se usó ocho veces antes del lanzamiento de hoy.
Se suponía que el motor principal BE-3 del propulsor se encendería hasta la marca de tiempo 2:25 de la misión, y la separación de la nave espacial se produciría unos 35 segundos después. Luego, la cápsula descendería de regreso a la Tierra con la ayuda de un paracaídas, mientras que el propulsor intentaría un aterrizaje vertical similar a un propulsor Falcon 9 de SpaceX. Tail 3 flew last time on mission NS-17which launched into suborbital space on August 26, 2021, with commercial payloads and a work of art known as Suborbital Triptych.
This incident is the first significant failure for the New Shepard, a reliable rocket. An investigation into the anomaly is likely to be carried out, and New Shepard will likely be grounded until more is known regarding the cause of the problem. The rocket’s launch escape system seemed to work perfectly, but possible space tourists now they might think twice before traveling aboard a New Shepard rocket. At least until Blue Origin has a better handle on what happened today.
New Shepard uses a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for its propellant, the same mixture that is currently causing complications with NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The space agency currently points to September 23 or 27 for the rocket’s inaugural launch, the first mission of the program Artemis Moon.
