Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket
The last time Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launched was September 12th, 2022, meaning it has now been over a year since the last flight. The rocket went from launching crew and different payloads every few months to staying grounded. This all has to do with the last flight which suffered an in-flight engine anomaly and the activation of the capsule abort system. The booster proceeded to crash into the desert floor while the capsule deployed parachutes and landed safely on the ground. Even though there were no crew aboard, New Shepard often does carry humans which caused a large investigation and look into exactly what went wrong. This revealed issues with the main engine and the engine’s nozzle in particular.
Now a full year after this anomaly, the question becomes what does the future look like for this launch vehicle. Here I will go more in-depth into what Blue Origin has been working on, the future of New Shepard, the mishap investigation, and more.
Credit SpaceBucket