Blue Origin targets first New Shepard rocket launch since booster mishap

Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Blue Origin and its billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, are targeting a launch next week for the company's New Shepard rocket, in a return to flight following last year's unmanned booster mishap.

"We're targeting a launch window that opens Dec. 18 for our next New Shepard payload mission. NS-24 will carry 33 science and research payloads as well as 38,000 @clubforfuture postcards to space," Blue Origin wrote in a post Tuesday on the platform Threads. "Club for the future" is the space company's nonprofit to inspire future generations to "pursue careers in STEM."

Next week's mission will mark the suborbital rocket's return to flight following an unmanned booster failure in September 2022. The mid-launch mishap caused an emergency abort system to separate the capsule from the booster. The failed unmanned NS-23 mission was carrying 36 payloads from academia, research institutions and students around the world.

On the live broadcast of the launch, from 14 months ago, flames could be seen shooting from the booster before the parachute system was deployed and the capsule drifted back for a soft landing on the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration oversaw the mission's investigation and ordered Blue Origin to take corrective actions earlier this year "to improve structural performance during operation as well as organizational changes" at the company. The FAA found that the "structural failure of an engine nozzle was caused by higher than expected engine operating temperatures."

While many of Blue Origin's flights are strictly cargo, New Shepard has flown 31 people past the edge of space at 340,000 feet to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. The rocket, which launches from the company's private facility in West Texas, is reusable and flies autonomously with no human pilot.