As of: 09/12/2022 8:57 p.m
For the first time, a rocket from Jeff Bezos’ space company went off course – a minute after launch. A few minutes later, the capsule sailed to the ground on a parachute. There were no people on board.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company has suffered a rocket launch failure for the first time. Space company Blue Origin’s rocket went off course a minute after launch over west Texas.
The capsule’s launch abort system was deployed immediately and decoupled it from the rocket. The system worked as intended, they said. There were no people on board, only scientific experiments.
Error happened at 8500 meters altitude
A few minutes later, the capsule sailed to the ground on a parachute in a remote desert region. As the capsule separated from the rocket, Blue Origin’s launch commentary broke off. It was later reported that there appeared to be an anomaly.
The failure happened as the rocket flew at around 1100 kilometers per hour at an altitude of around 8500 meters. Afterwards there were no pictures of the rocket, only of the capsule. Usually the rocket lands in the desert and is reused for further flights. That obviously didn’t happen this time.
It was the 23rd flight of the New Shepard program, named after the first American in space, astronaut Alan Shepard. The same type of rocket and capsule have also been used for 10-minute flights with fare-paying passengers to the edge of space, most recently in August.