Blue Origin: New Shepard Crashed Due to Engine Nozzle Failure

Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket crashed during a flight last September due to the structural failure of the vehicle’s BE-3 engine nozzle caused by excessive operating temperatures, the company announced on Friday.

“The resulting thrust misalignment properly triggered the Crew Capsule escape system, which functioned as designed throughout the flight. The Crew Capsule and all payloads onboard landed safely and will be flown again,” the company said in a statement.

A small rocket at the base of New Shepard’s capsule carried the spacecraft away from the failing booster. Blue Origin said the booster commanded a shutdown of BE-3 engine. The rocket then crashed into the desert within a designated safety area. The spacecraft deployed its parachutes and landed in the west Texas desert.

Blue Origin said it would return New Shepard to flight “soon” with the 36 microgravity experiments that were on board the capsule last September. The company did not provide a more time frame for the next flight.

The booster, known as New Shepard 3 (NS3) or Tail 3, first launch in December 2017 and was on its ninth flight when it failed. The rocket was only designated to fly experiments but never flew any passengers, according to the New Shepard page on Wikipedia.

“Public safety was unaffected by the mishap, and no changes to crew safety system designs were recommended as a result of the investigation,” the company said.

Blue Origin said the BE-3 engine nozzle failed after it was exposed to operational temperatures that exceeded previous design configurations.

“Forensic evaluation of the recovered nozzle fragments also showed clear evidence of thermal damage and hot streaks resulting from increased operating temperatures. The fatigue location on the flight nozzle is aligned with a persistent hot streak identified during the investigation,” the company said.

The company said that design changes made to the BE-3 engine’s boundary layer cooling system caused the increase in nozzle heating. A spokeswoman declined to comment on why and when the design changes were made.

“Blue Origin is implementing corrective actions, including design changes to the combustion chamber and operating parameters, which have reduced engine nozzle bulk and hot-streak temperatures. Additional design changes to the nozzle have improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads,” the company said.

Blue Origin’s Mishap Investigation Team conducted the investigation with oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The company said the team included representatives of the National Transportation Safety Board, NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program and the space agency’s Commercial Crew Office.

New Shepard has a record of 21 successes, 1 failure and one partial failure. The booster on New Shepard’s first suborbital flight test in 2015 suffered a failure of hydraulic pressure during descent. It crashed in the desert while the capsule landed safely under parachutes.

Blue Origin has flown 32 passengers on six suborbital flights. The company did not provide a timeline for when it would resume flying paying passengers.