New Shepard suffers in-flight abort on uncrewed suborbital flight
A problem with Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle caused an in-flight flight a minute after liftoff Sept. 12, causing a capsule filled with payloads but not people to fire its launch abort motor and parachute to a safe landing.
New Shepard lifted off on the NS-23 mission at 10:27 a.m. Eastern from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The mission, postponed from the end of August because of bad weather at the launch site, had its liftoff delayed by nearly an hour, although the company did not disclose the reason for the holds during the countdown.
The launch appeared to be going normally until about T+1 minutes. The plume from the BE-3 engine that powers the vehicle's booster changed appearance, and the vehicle then appeared to veer slightly from the vertical. At T+1:05, the capsule's launch escape motor activated, sending the capsule clear of the booster.
Also at Ars Technica and CNN.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 12 2022, @06:11PM (2 children)
If the rocket exhaust goes green, that's your engine burning- and it's time to leave the vehicle by whatever means you have available.
BTW: has anybody seen MiB3? I'll just say that I found it to be a much better movie than the previous 2, and I wonder - idly - not enough to look it up for my damn self - but... do/did the Kennedy launch towers really have zip-lines to the beach for rapid evac of the launch vehicles? If not, that's a really cool invention on the part of the writers. If so, that's a really cool invention on the part of the NASA engineers!
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Monday September 12 2022, @07:31PM
IIRC (it's been a while), the zip lines were actually there and were part of the astronaut evacuation procedure for a pre-flight emergency.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Monday September 12 2022, @08:50PM
Yes, they zip-line is a real thing.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/emer-egress.html [nasa.gov]
It was planned as a contingency to de-ass the spacecraft and launch structure if there was a pre-launch anomaly or if only one of the SRB lit.
SpaceX has one at 39A as well.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/03/video-slidewire-basket-crew-egress-system-tested-at-pad-39a/ [spaceflightnow.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 12 2022, @06:44PM (1 child)
⠀
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 4, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Monday September 12 2022, @08:52PM
The launch escape system appears to have preserved the crew capsule intact. It clocks a bunch of Gs when it kicks off and the rocket failed at Max-Q so it would have been a wild ride, but the crew would have survived.
Score one for Launch Escape Systems.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 12 2022, @07:58PM
Bezos rocket crashes after liftoff, only experiments aboard [apnews.com]
The rocket ("Propulsion module") crashed, capsule landed.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday September 12 2022, @11:36PM (1 child)
So it would appear that this was the 9th flight of their older rocket, the NS3, which has only ever flown uncrewed flights.
Their next rocket, the NS4, has launched all six crewed flights, and nothing else since its first two test flights (8 total).
So if it's a wear problem the NS4 could be ready to fail as well. Could make for a heck of a story to tell, if you don't mind risking some G-force injuries to get it!
It's also possible that the problem was already fixed in the latest version. Did they update the designs significantly? Or have their engineers been mostly focused on their other projects? Does anyone outside the company have a clue?
If nothing else, the speculation about SpaceX is a lot more well-informed.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 13 2022, @01:18AM
Have a safe in-flight abort, get a free extra ticket for a future launch.
Meanwhile:
SpaceX launches fleet-leading booster on 14th flight [spaceflightnow.com]
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1568788727014752257 [twitter.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]