Blue Origin launches first New Shepard flight since grounding

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard rocket lifted off from Texas on Tuesday carrying research payloads, a company live stream showed, in its first mission since a failure last year led to a 15-month grounding.

New Shepard, the company's only active rocket that can carry humans and cargo on short trips to and from the brim of space, lifted off from Blue Origin's remote Van Horn, Texas launch site at 10:42 a.m. CT (1642 GMT).

It soared to space for a few minutes 66 miles (106 km) above ground before its reusable rocket booster returned back to land in tact, completing its ninth trip to space.

At peak altitude, the booster deployed 33 research experiments encapsulated in a gumdrop-shaped pod, which also softly returned to land under parachutes minutes later.

The mission marked New Shepard's 24th overall and first since failing mid-flight last year because of a "structural failure" in the rocket's engine nozzle that had been caused by excessive heat blasting from the engine's combustion chamber, Blue Origin has said.

That led to a 15-month grounding. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees mishap investigations by private rocket companies, required Blue Origin to redesign New Shepard's engine before returning to flight.

Tuesday's mission lasted just over 10 minutes and marked Blue Origin's first and likely only flight of the year.

In a statement after the mission, Blue Origin's senior vice president of the New Shepard program, Phil Joyce, said the company expects to increase New Shepard's launch rate in 2024 but did not provide details on when its next mission would be, or if it would fly humans.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Mark Porter and Sandra Maler)