A rocket operated by Blue Origin failed during a planned uncrewed space flight, ending the mission prematurely, the Jeff Bezos-backed space company said
Roughly a minute after launching Monday morning, the booster the company was using for the launch appeared to malfunction, according to video from the company. The capsule carrying cargo separated from the booster and could later be seen landing under parachutes.
“Booster failure on today’s uncrewed flight. Escape system performed as designed,” the company said in a tweet on its verifiedThe Federal Aviation Administration said it would oversee an investigation into the mishap. The agency, which regulatesand re-entries, said it would determine whether anything related to the problem affected public safety. Blue Origin won’t be able to operate New Shepard while that work takes place, according to the FAA.
No injuries or damage to public property related to the booster failure have been reported, the FAA said. Earlier, Blue Origin said there were three dozen payloads on the capsule, such as an experiment designed to have artificial intelligence capture suborbital data from sensors and analyze the results in real time.
This image provided by Blue Origin shows a capsule containing science experiments as it parachuted to the ground after the launch failure.