Bright comeback. Bezos's company is preparing to launch the New Shepard rocket after a 15-month pause

December 13, 23:55 Share:

New Shepard resumes flights (Photo: Screenshot from Blue Origin video/YouTube)

Next week, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will launch its New Shepard suborbital rocket for the first time in more than a year.

New Shepard is expected to carry 33 research payloads into space. There will also be thousands on board “ postcards to space” collected by her non-profit organization Club for the Future.

“We are planning a launch window for our next mission with the New Shepard payload, which will open on December 18th,” noted Blue Origin's X page.

As a reminder, New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin for space tourism.. The system consists of a launch vehicle and a crew capsule that can accommodate up to six passengers or a variety of cargo.. Blue Origin has flown six crewed suborbital missions, all of which have been successful, sending 31 people to the edge of space and back.

The first flight with passengers took place in July 2021 ( at that time, in particular, Jeff Bezos himself and his brother Mark were on board). New Shepard's last flight with passengers took place in August 2022. The flight to send the payload was supposed to take place in September 2022. It failed and the launch vehicle was lost.

US Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA) after the accident ordered Blue Origin to redesign the engine and nozzle components and make organizational changes. The fact that Bezos' company is preparing for a new launch indicates that Blue Origin has implemented all the necessary changes. The company received a modified launch license from the FAA that expires in August 2025 and is limited only to launches from Blue Origin's West Texas facilities.

As NV Techno wrote, at the beginning of the year Blue Origin announced that the crew of the next New Shepard flight with passengers will consist of five “ women who change the world for the better, have influence and can carry messages to people.”

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