A capsule from astronautics company Blue Origin, founded by Amazon creator Jeff Bezos, saw its unmanned space mission abort on Monday.
The capsule took off from West Texas and began belching yellow flames around its single engine within the first minute of flight.
The capsule’s emergency launch cancellation system activated immediately. Several minutes later, the capsule parachuted into the desert.
The rocket carrying the capsule also fell to the ground without causing injuries or damage, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
Although the New Shepard rocket was intended for experimental flights, it was the same model that was used for the 10-minute tourist trips.
The Federal Aviation Administration also said the rocket could not be used while an investigation was underway.
“It appears we had an anomaly in today’s flight. This was not planned. (…) Propeller failure in today’s unmanned flight. Exhaust system worked as designed,” Blue Origin said on Twitter.
The company did not provide further details.
It was the 23rd flight of the New Shepard program, named after the American in space, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, and the ninth of this particular type of rocket.
The rocket was supposed to launch almost two weeks ago, but was delayed until Monday due to bad weather.
Source: TSF
