Blue Origin ‘responding to an issue’ after abort system activated on uncrewed launch
By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business
(CNN) - Blue Origin experienced an "anomaly" during an uncrewed launch of its New Shepard rocket from West Texas on Monday morning, triggering an abort system that allowed the capsule to parachute to Earth.
"This was a payload mission with no astronauts on board. The capsule escape system functioned as designed," the company tweeted.
A livestream of the launch showed the crew capsule, which had no one inside at the time, dramatically ejected from the rocket as it approached Max Q, or the time during the flight when the vehicle is buffeted by the atmosphere the most. The capsule at the top of ship then parachuted back to earth.
"It appears we've experienced an anomaly with today's flight, this was unplanned and we do not have any details yet, but our crew capsule was able to escape successfully," Erika Wagner, a Blue Origin employee, said during the livestream of the launch.
The mission, dubbed NS-23, was flying 36 payloads, with two flying on the exterior of the booster. Eighteen of the payloads on the flight were funded by NASA, Blue Origin has said. Among the payloads on the NS-23 mission were nine that had been developed by students in elementary, middle, and high schools, according to a tweet from Blue Origin. Other science projects included included tests on how paraffin and beeswax can be fabricated in space to create cleaner rocket motor propellants, and an artificial intelligence experiment aimed at capturing suborbital data from multiple sensors and analyzing it in real-time.
The private space-faring company, which was founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, tweeted at 10:40 a.m. ET it was "responding to an issue this morning at our Launch Site One location in West Texas." The tweet continued: "More information to come as it is available."
Blue Origin did not immediately respond to CNN Business' request for further comment Monday morning.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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