The uncrewed New Shepard 24 test flight will refly the science payloads that were aboard the New Shepard 23 flight, which experienced an engine nozzle failure at 1 minute and 4 seconds following liftoff in September 2022. Blue Origin is preparing to launch its New Shepard rocket for the first time in over a year, the company said Tuesday.

 Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launch

“We’re targeting a launch window that opens on Dec 18 for our next New Shepard payload mission,” Blue Origin wrote on social network X, formerly known as Twitter. On Blue Origin New Shepard rocket no humans, but 33 science and research payloads will be on board, the company added, referring to cargo that will support experiments in space.

The New Shepard launch, titled NS-24, will be a cargo mission, carrying research and scientific payloads. The mission will mark the suborbital rocket’s return to flight, after a more than 14-month hiatus grounded since a September 2022 uncrewed mission failed roughly a minute after liftoff from Texas, forcing the rocket’s capsule full of NASA experiments to safely eject mid-flight.

Shepard rocket launch failure last year

The company in March determined that a “structural failure” in the rocket’s engine nozzle caused last year’s failure. No humans were aboard, though New Shepard has previously flown several missions carrying tourists, as well as Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000, on the rocket’s maiden flight in 2021.

U.S. FAA review of Blue Origin’s New Shepard

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration closed its review of Blue Origin’s New Shepard investigation in September, agreeing with the company’s findings. It required Blue Origin to make 21 corrective actions, including an engine redesign and “organizational changes.”

New Shepard returns to flight as Blue Origin races to get its much bigger rocket, New Glenn, off the ground for the first time, which it plans for late 2024.

While New Shepard only reaches the brim of space, New Glenn is designed to deploy heavier payloads into orbit as the centerpiece of Blue Origin’s goal to rival Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX.

Bezos has shaken up the company’s leadership and corporate structure in recent months, Reuters has reported. Longtime Amazon executive Dave Limp started as Blue Origin’s new CEO earlier this month.

Jeff Bezos Blue Origin

The New Shepard rocket launches from Blue Origin’s private facility in West Texas, carrying people and payloads above 100 kilometers, or more than 340,000 feet, for a couple minutes of weightlessness. The capsule is flown autonomously, with no human pilot, and floats down with the assistance of a set of parachutes to land in the Texas desert. The New Shepard rocket booster is reusable, returning to land on a concrete pad near the launch site.

To date, Blue Origin has flown 31 people past the edge of space with New Shepard.

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