A few months after the NS-23 incident, Blue Origin released a full mission report. This outlined what went wrong and what led to an engine failure and the abort of the capsule during New Shepard’s flight. Since then, the company hasn’t said much in regard to the specific mission or progress on the suborbital rocket. That was until yesterday when the FAA provided an update on the vehicle.
Specifically, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that they have finally closed the New Shepard investigation. However, they also made it clear that the closure does not signal an immediate resumption of New Shepard launches. In reality, there is a somewhat extensive list of corrective actions Blue Origin needs to make in order to get approved for another launch.
This comes as the company works toward the first uncrewed flight and then an expected ramp-up in crewed missions. A process that will have to wait until the FAA is satisfied. Here I will go more in-depth into the investigation closure, the future timeline of New Shepard, what Blue Origin has been working on since last year, and more.
Investigation Closure
The last time we saw New Shepard fly was over a year ago on September 12th, 2022. A few months after the incident Blue Origin shared that they had formed an investigation team and had an idea of what caused the mishap.
Most recently, the FAA shed light on what the company has been working on since then. Specifically, yesterday on the 27th they released a report on the investigation closure and necessary actions. It’s quoted saying, “The FAA has closed the Blue Origin New Shepard 23 mishap investigation. The final report cites the proximate cause of the Sept. 12, 2022, mishap as the structural failure of an engine nozzle caused by higher than expected engine operating temperatures. The FAA required Blue Origin implement 21 corrective actions to prevent mishap reoccurrence, including redesign of engine and nozzle components to improve structural performance during operation as well as organizational changes.”
While the FAA is reporting this information now, Blue Origin has known of the cause for a long time. Back in March, the company had determined that the direct cause of the mishap was thanks to a structural fatigue failure of the BE-3PM engine nozzle during powered flight. Aided by onboard video and telemetry, flight hardware recovered from the field, and the work of Blue Origin’s materials labs and test facilities, they were able to determine what went wrong soon after.
Testing of the BE-3PM engine began right after the mishap and established that the flight configuration of the nozzle operated at hotter temperatures than previous design configurations. Forensic evaluation of the recovered nozzle fragments also showed clear evidence of thermal damage and hot streaks resulting from increased operating temperatures. The fatigue location on the flight nozzle is aligned with a persistent hot streak identified during the investigation.
What’s interesting about this engine failure, and what the FAA likely looked into quite a bit, is how it happened. This was the 23rd launch of New Shepard and other than one of its initial flights, every other launch had been successful. Blue Origin revealed however that prior to the NS-23 mission, changes were made to the engine that caused it to fail. In Blue Origin’s initial report, they are quoted saying, “The MIT determined that design changes made to the engine’s boundary layer cooling system accounted for an increase in nozzle heating and explained the hot streaks present.
With all this in mind, the question becomes what exactly are the corrective actions and by now, how many of them are complete. The FAA points out that Blue Origin is not launching anything until they are all checked off, but this process could already be done. After the failure and the specific issue was found, Blue Origin began implementing corrective actions, including design changes to the combustion chamber and operating parameters, which reduced engine nozzle bulk and hot-streak temperatures. Additional design changes to the nozzle also improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads. These no doubt were some of the corrective actions, but there likely was even more.
In one final quote from the FAA report they clarify, “The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of New Shepard launches. Blue Origin must implement all corrective actions that impact public safety and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next New Shepard launch.” With this in mind, there are two possible outcomes. One is that the company still needs to complete a few corrective actions, and we won’t see a New Shepard flight for a while. The other option which is more likely, is that the FAA and Blue Origin have been working together for a while now, and almost if not all corrective actions are complete. Based on comments from Blue Origin officials, the latter seems more probable.
New Shepard’s Plan
Over the last few weeks, we have heard more and more about the return of this vehicle and upcoming launches. For example, a few months ago, speaking at the Financial Times’ “Investing in Space” event on June 6, Blue Origin Chief Executive Bob Smith said the company was on the verge of resuming New Shepard launches, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. “We knew very soon after the event what exactly happened,” Smith said, saying that the company has been “working through with the FAA on the process by which we go back to flight.”
Even back in March, the company said they expected flights to resume soon. This being said, Smith continued by pointing out, “We’re now dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s to get through that, as well as getting our system ready to go fly again. New Shepard, from that standpoint, should be ready to go fly within the next few weeks” he said.
The most up-to-date company plans first call for an uncrewed test flight to occur in early October. If all goes well, Blue Origin is planning its first crewed mission since August 4, 2022, to take place in mid-February of next year. In other words, it will be another 5 months or so before we can expect New Shepard to launch crew.
After the FAA statement, Blue Origin provided no additional details about efforts to implement those corrective actions. “We’ve received the FAA’s letter and plan to fly soon,” a company spokesperson said in response to the FAA statement. Back on the last flight, while there was no crew aboard, it was carrying quite a few different payloads. These obviously didn’t reach their destination, so the next launch and New Shepard’s return flight will have these same payloads aboard. If this flight goes well, then Blue Origin will try a crewed launch next.
Despite the failure, Blue Origin has made it clear that people still want to fly on New Shepard. Earlier this year, Ariane Cornell, vice president of commercial orbit, astronaut, and international sales at Blue Origin commented, “We are still closing out the investigation. We’re working very closely with the FAA. We’re going into very deep, deep detail on that.” She also said that the company was planning to return New Shepard to flight “by the end of this year,” but was not more specific. She noted that the escape system on the vehicle worked “perfectly” on NS-23, a point the company emphasized in its statement about the investigation. In addition, Cornell noted the company had not lost any customers for its crewed flights since the mishap. “Demand continues to be strong,” she said. “We continue to have customers signing up for New Shepard. Some of those even asked to fly an ‘escape’ mission because it seemed so exciting. We have politely declined.”
Beyond this, the company expects crewed missions to increase in demand significantly. Comments from Gary Lai, the chief architect for New Shepard, also give us a better idea of New Shepard’s future. In one quote he said, “We expect that in the near future, the coming year, suborbital tourism will dominate our flights,” predicting that Blue Origin will support “about a couple” dedicated payload missions a year, the same as it has, even as the number of private astronaut flights grows.
Fortunately for Blue Origin, there didn’t seem to be any environmental concerns after the last mishap and destruction of the booster. They reported that all systems designed to protect public safety functioned as planned. There was no damage to ground-based systems, and all debris was recovered in the designated hazard area.” Even the FAA commented that “All debris landed within the designated hazard area and public safety was maintained at all times with no injuries or public property damage.” This no doubt helped Blue Origin speed up the process of preparing for the next flight. Still though, it has been over a year and they are not yet approved to fly. If everything goes according to plan, the first crewed mission will be early next year. A long break for the company, but one they don’t expect to affect their tourism business and the future demand of New Shepard.
Conclusion
After over a year the FAA just closed its mishap investigation of Blue Origin’s NS-23 mishap. This is good news for the company but highlights 21 corrective actions that must be completed in order to receive a launch license. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.