American space company Blue Origin has postponed the launch of its New Shepard rocket, which was due to fly on Monday for the first time since an accident more than a year ago, until later in the week.
• Also read: More than a year after the accident, Blue Origin plans to launch its rocket again next week
The launch, which was supposed to mark the company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos' grand return to the skies, could not take place as planned on Monday “due to a problem with the ground systems,” Blue said. Origin on X
“We will soon announce a new filming window for this week,” the company said.
Earlier on Monday, Blue Origin had already indicated that the launch would be postponed by an hour due to low temperatures at the launch pad in West Texas.
The mission, called NS-24, was not intended to carry anyone on board other than scientific experiments, more than half of which were developed with NASA support.
However, this rocket is also used by the company for space tourism flights and has already carried 31 people over the final frontier in flights of just a few minutes, including Jeff Bezos himself.
The accident in September 2022 resulted in the crash of the rocket's propulsion stage, which was also not carrying passengers at the time.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opened an investigation which concluded in September that the accident was caused by “a higher than expected engine operating temperature.”
The FAA had demanded changes from the space company before flights could resume. These “corrective measures” notably included changing the design of certain engine components.
The regulator confirmed to AFP on Sunday that it had approved the amended flight license submitted by Blue Origin.
New Horizons
The New Shepard rocket consists of a propulsion stage and at its tip the capsule that transports its cargo or passengers.
During the mission, called NS-23, the capsule's automatic ejection system was triggered and it fell to the ground, slowed by its parachutes.
The main stage had been destroyed by impact with the ground, rather than landing in a controlled manner and being reused as usual.
All debris fell within the designated safety zone, the FAA determined in September.
Blue Origin competes in the niche of short tourist space flights with Virgin Galactic, a New Mexico-based company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson.
But Blue Origin is also developing a heavy launch vehicle called New Glenn, whose first flight is planned for 2024. At 98 meters tall, the New Glenn rocket must be able to carry up to 45 tons into low Earth orbit – a completely different scale than New Shepard's suborbital flights.