On September 12, 2022, Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket suffered a major anomaly during an uncrewed mission, forcing the capsule to abort and make an emergency landing. While the capsule and its payload of scientific experiments landed safely under parachutes, the booster was lost in the accident.
The NS-23 mission took off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site and was intended to carry 36 scientific payloads to suborbital space. But about 1 minute and 4 seconds into the flight, as the vehicle was approaching max q, the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure, a large burst of flames erupted from the base of the rocket. The capsule’s emergency escape system immediately activated, blasting the capsule away from the failing booster.
After a six-month investigation, Blue Origin determined the root cause was a thermo-structural failure of the BE-3PM engine nozzle due to operating temperatures that exceeded expected and analyzed values. Fragments of the nozzle showed clear evidence of thermal damage and hot streaks from the elevated temperatures.
The company found that design changes made to the engine’s boundary layer cooling system led to increased nozzle heating. To address this, Blue Origin is implementing corrective actions including design modifications to the combustion chamber and operating parameters to reduce nozzle temperatures and improve structural performance.
While the anomaly represented a setback for Blue Origin after 21 consecutive successful New Shepard missions, it also provided valuable lessons for the company and the broader commercial spaceflight industry as they continue to advance suborbital and orbital human spaceflight. Here are some of the key takeaways:
1. Spaceflight is still hard and anomalies can happen, even after many successful flights
The New Shepard failure was a stark reminder that despite the impressive progress made by commercial space companies in recent years, launching rockets remains an inherently difficult and risky endeavor. Before the NS-23 anomaly, Blue Origin had flown New Shepard 21 times without incident, including six crewed flights that carried a total of 31 people to suborbital space.
This string of successes may have created a perception that New Shepard was a mature, reliable system. But as the failure showed, a problem can crop up suddenly, even after many nominal missions. Rockets are extremely complex vehicles operating in challenging flight regimes. Even with rigorous testing and analysis, not every potential issue can be uncovered ahead of time.
The reality is that spaceflight failure is always a possibility that must be planned for and mitigated against as much as possible, but never completely eliminated. This is true for even the most experienced companies and flight-proven vehicles. As Blue Origin and others continue to fly more frequently with plans to greatly expand human spaceflight, this is an important fact to keep front of mind.
2. Robust abort systems are critical for crew safety
While the loss of the booster was unfortunate, the successful operation of New Shepard’s capsule escape system was a major bright spot that validated the importance of this crew safety feature. The abort motor quickly fired to pull the capsule away from the failing rocket, enabling a safe landing under parachutes.
This was not the first time Blue Origin had to test New Shepard’s abort capabilities. In 2018, the company intentionally triggered an abort during an uncrewed flight to verify the system would function properly in a real emergency. That test went smoothly, but the abort during NS-23, while unplanned, demonstrated the system works as designed even in a dynamic failure scenario.
Abort systems have proven their worth in other commercial crew vehicles as well. In 2019, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule used its SuperDraco abort engines to quickly escape an explosion during a ground test. In 2018, the launch abort system on a Soyuz rocket carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin fired to pull their capsule to safety when the booster failed during ascent.
Having a robust, redundant method for the crew capsule to get away from a malfunctioning rocket is a fundamental requirement for human spaceflight. Blue Origin’s successful abort underscored that these systems must be regarded as an essential part of the vehicle, not an afterthought, and tested rigorously. While hopefully never needed, abort capability provides a critical safety backstop.
3. Uncrewed test flights are important for identifying issues before flying people
Although Blue Origin had already completed six crewed New Shepard missions carrying space tourists, the flight that experienced the anomaly was an uncrewed payload-only mission. The failure happened on a rocket and capsule dedicated to flying cargo rather than the spacecraft used for passenger flights.
This allowed Blue Origin to uncover and address the engine issue without putting people at risk. While the scientific payloads onboard were unfortunately lost, no human lives were endangered. By alternating between uncrewed and crewed missions, Blue Origin has been able to cautiously expand its passenger flights while still wringing out its vehicles and catching problems on cargo-only launches.
Conducting uncrewed flight tests has long been a standard practice for NASA and other government space agencies to verify a vehicle is ready before entrusting it with human lives. Commercial space companies would be wise to take a similar approach, even with spacecraft designed primarily for space tourism.
Uncrewed missions provide opportunities to test out new capabilities and push vehicles to their limits to identify flaws that need correcting. They serve as important building blocks to gain experience and prove out safety before putting people onboard. While uncrewed flights add expense and time to development, they are a worthwhile investment.
4. Open sharing of anomaly investigations benefits the whole industry
To its credit, Blue Origin publicly released a detailed summary of its anomaly investigation, including the root cause and corrective actions, about six months after the failure occurred. The company provided a specific technical explanation, attributing the failure to thermal damage to the engine nozzle due to higher than expected temperatures and describing design changes to address this.
This level of transparency about a launch failure from a private spaceflight company is commendable and something the industry should strive to emulate. Traditionally, commercial space companies have tended to keep details of anomalies and investigations close-hold, often citing the proprietary nature of their technology.
But there is great value in openly sharing lessons learned from failures. It allows the industry as a whole to learn from each other’s mistakes and implement fixes to head off similar issues. It also builds public trust by providing insight into how companies identify and respond to problems to improve safety.
Government agencies like NASA and the NTSB have long made their mishap investigation reports public in the interest of transparency and safety. The FAA, which licensed the New Shepard flight, oversaw Blue Origin’s investigation. While private companies are understandably protective of their intellectual property, they should strive to share safety-related findings to the maximum extent possible.
Open anomaly reporting creates a body of knowledge that the entire industry can draw from to advance best practices and make spaceflight safer for everyone. It’s encouraging that Blue Origin chose to release its findings, and hopefully sets a positive example for others to follow.
5. Regulators play a key role in anomaly response and prevention
The FAA was closely involved in responding to the New Shepard anomaly and overseeing Blue Origin’s investigation and corrective actions. Before clearing New Shepard to return to flight over a year after the failure, the FAA required Blue Origin to implement a total of 21 actions, including redesigning engine components and making organizational changes.
This illustrates the crucial role regulators like the FAA play in commercial spaceflight safety. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation licenses and regulates private launches to protect public safety. While companies lead anomaly investigations, the FAA provides oversight to verify root causes are clearly identified and appropriate fixes put in place before the vehicle flies again.
The FAA also collects and analyzes data across all commercial space launches to detect concerning trends and recommend precautionary measures to head off accidents. This safety monitoring is vital as the pace and volume of commercial launches increases to catch issues that may not be apparent looking at just a single company’s operations.
However, the New Shepard incident also highlights potential gaps in the FAA’s authority. Its oversight is primarily focused on protecting uninvolved public on the ground rather than the safety of private passengers or “spaceflight participants.” Passengers currently fly under an informed consent regime, acknowledging the risks.
As space tourism ramps up, this regulatory framework may need to evolve to ensure adequate government oversight of passenger safety. While the industry is still in its early stages, it would be beneficial for the FAA’s mandate to expand to cover the safety of private astronauts as well as public safety as human spaceflight becomes more routine.
6. Frequent, incremental flights help identify issues and speed development
With 24 total New Shepard missions over seven years, Blue Origin has adopted an incremental test flight approach, allowing it to identify and address issues in a stepwise manner. By gradually expanding the flight envelope and test objectives over multiple missions, the company can uncover problems before they pose a risk to crew.
This contrasts with an alternative approach of attempting to fully qualify a vehicle through a long, intensive uncrewed test campaign and then transitioning directly to crewed flight. Blue Origin’s model of frequent, iterative flights provides more opportunities to detect and work out issues in smaller chunks.
For example, the company’s first New Shepard vehicle was lost during a landing attempt on its initial flight in 2015. Blue Origin incorporated lessons learned into an improved design that flew successfully. Had the company attempted to go straight to operational crew flights, the landing failure could have been more consequential.
Incremental flight tests also allow reusability and rapid turnaround to be demonstrated over successive missions. Blue Origin reflies each New Shepard booster multiple times, using the same vehicle for both uncrewed and crewed flights. This provides many chances to validate the rocket can be quickly inspected and prepared for another launch safely and efficiently.
The cadence of New Shepard flights has given Blue Origin experience operating a reusable suborbital transportation system almost like an airline, with boosters logging multiple missions in a short timeframe. While an expendable rocket that flies infrequently may be able to hide flaws, a reusable one that launches often will expose any weaknesses, forcing improvements.
7. Supporting NASA and science missions builds capability for human spaceflight
In addition to its space tourism flights, Blue Origin has also flown NASA-sponsored research payloads on multiple New Shepard missions. The rocket serves as a platform for microgravity experiments and technology demonstrations that take advantage of the unique environment of suborbital space.
Flying these science missions has given Blue Origin extra flight opportunities to gain experience with New Shepard and validate its performance before carrying people. NASA has rigorous safety requirements for its payloads, so supporting these flights demands operational discipline.
Blue Origin has also developed a specialized capsule configuration optimized for flying large numbers of experiments. The extra volume and payload accommodations provide flexibility to fly more diverse payloads. Designing for NASA’s research needs has pushed the company to create a capable, reconfigurable spacecraft.
The experience Blue Origin has gained through its NASA payload flights directly translates to its human spaceflight program. The same vehicle reliability and operational skills are required whether flying experiments or people. By cutting its teeth on science missions, Blue Origin has been able to refine its processes and procedures.
The company’s work with NASA also lends credibility and provides a steady revenue stream to supplement tourism flights. As Blue Origin looks to expand its human spaceflight business, the capability it has built up through research missions will serve it well. Continuing to balance tourism and science will create a more sustainable model.
8. Setbacks are inevitable, but provide opportunities to learn and improve
The New Shepard anomaly was a highly visible failure for Blue Origin that forced it to stand down for over a year while it investigated the accident and implemented fixes. The company missed out on potential tourism revenue and had to delay several planned science missions.
However, the failure also provided an opportunity for Blue Origin to closely examine its vehicle design and processes to identify areas for improvement. Going through the anomaly investigation allowed the company to uncover previously unknown failure modes and implement mitigations.
In many ways, successfully responding to and recovering from a major failure is more valuable for Blue Origin in the long run than if the anomaly had never happened. By rigorously diagnosing the root cause and taking corrective actions, the company has made New Shepard a safer, more robust vehicle.
The experience of the anomaly also tested Blue Origin’s safety culture and organizational response. Reacting properly to an accident requires focus, open communication, and a willingness to identify and fix shortcomings. Having gone through this process will make Blue Origin better prepared to deal with future issues.
From a broader perspective, anomalies and setbacks are par for the course in any complex engineering endeavor, especially in a field as challenging as spaceflight. The key is to learn from failures and use them as springboards to improve designs and practices.
SpaceX, for example, has lost multiple rockets during its development of Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. But it has used each failure as an opportunity to implement fixes and come back stronger. As a result, its vehicles are now among the most reliable in the world.
Blue Origin will undoubtedly face future challenges as it seeks to advance human spaceflight. But by openly acknowledging and rigorously investigating the New Shepard anomaly, the company has demonstrated a commitment to safety and continuous improvement that bodes well for its long-term success. The lessons it has learned will make it a stronger, more resilient organization.
