A Blue Origin rocket had a major problem when it was already in flight

About a minute after its launch on September 12 in Texas, the booster carrying the New Shepard spacecraft went up in flames, triggering the ejection of the New Shepard spacecraft, on which at that time there were no astronauts but only equipment from the NASA. In any case, the emergency system worked perfectly: the capsule then landed, intact, a few minutes later. While the first stage of the Blue Origin rocket, the aerospace company founded and led by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has been lost.

The booster, when everything works perfectly, detaches from the spacecraft and travels its return trajectory until it lands vertically: so it is ready to be recycled for future launches. This is the first true failure of a Blue Origin rocket since the company has performed suborbital flights, some of them manned.

The first Blue Origin flight, which also aims to profit through space tourism, was attended by Jeff Bezos himself in July 2021. In the past, Blue Origin had successfully tested the ejection system in the course of flights planned for this purpose. of the New Shepard capsule designed for the transport of astronauts and civilians.