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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

New Shepard suffers in-flight abort on uncrewed suborbital flight [spacenews.com]

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 [arstechnica.com] and CNN [cnn.com].

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