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Blue Originis aiming to ultimately reason out a more than 15 - month pause in operation of its New Shepard subocular Eruca vesicaria sativa , with the companionship announcing today that it will flee an uncrewed missionary work as early as December 18 .
The company confirmed the launching on itssocial metier accountfollowing aBloomberg reportof an internal e-mail on the fresh targeted date . The mission , called NS-24 , will express 33 skill and inquiry payloads and other shipment .
New Shepard has been grounded since September 2022 , when an issue with an engine nozzletriggered an auto - abort , which release the uncrewed capsule from the booster . The capsule landed safely ; the booster was destroyed when it break apart back to Earth . ( That missionary post was also uncrewed . )
The Federal Aviation Administrationformally concludedits investigation into the mishap in September , instructing Blue Origin to follow out 21 corrective action , including redesigning the engine and honker portion as well as “ organizational changes . ”
This new launching escort mean that Blue Origin has implemented all the actions and received its qualify launch license from the FAA . According to the regulator ’s website , the modified license will expire in August 2025 and is throttle to launches from Blue Origin ’s West Texas facilities only .
While Blue Origin has many ambitious projects under development — including a heavy - lift rocket called New Glenn , which the company aims to fly late next year , and a lunar lander called Blue Moon , which hassolicited a $ 3.4 billion contractfrom NASA — the New Shepard flight programme is the only program that is currently operational . To date , the vehicle has flown more than 22 times , and has taken 31 people to the sharpness of space and back ( including CEO Jeff Bezos himself ) .
