Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard rocket has finally lifted off from Texas, carrying research payloads, a company live stream showed, in its first mission since a failure last year led to a 15-month grounding.
The sole operational rocket in Blue Origin's fleet designed for transporting both humans and cargo on brief journeys to and from the edge of space, New Shepard, took off from the remote Van Horn, Texas launch site at 10:42 a.m. CT (1642 GMT).
Ascending to space for a brief duration, it reached an altitude of 66 miles (106 km) above the Earth's surface. Remarkably, its reusable rocket booster safely returned to land, concluding its ninth successful journey into space.
Upon reaching its highest point, the booster released 33 research experiments contained within a pod resembling a gumdrop. This pod descended gently back to Earth, supported by parachutes, minutes after deployment.
The mission marked New Shepard's 24th overall and first since failing mid-flight last year because of a "structural failure" in the rocket's engine nozzle caused by excessive heat blasting from the engine's combustion chamber, Blue Origin has said.
This incident resulted in a 15-month suspension. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, responsible for overseeing mishap investigations involving private rocket companies, mandated that Blue Origin redesign New Shepard's engine before approving the resumption of flights.
Tuesday's mission lasted just over 10 minutes and marked Blue Origin's first and likely only flight of the year.
In a statement after the mission, Blue Origin's senior vice president of the New Shepard program, Phil Joyce, said the company expects to increase New Shepard's launch rate in 2024 but did not provide details on when its next mission would be, or if it would fly humans.
Reported by Reuters
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