FAA closes Blue Origin NS-23 mishap investigation

On Wednesday the FAA announced it has closed the mishap investigation it oversaw of Blue Origin’s failed NS-23 mission that took place one year ago. With the investigation now finished, Blue Origin plans to return to flight “soon.”

FAA requires 21 corrective actions to New Shepard rocket

The FAA announced in a press release Wednesday that it has closed the mishap investigation into Blue Origin’s NS-23 failure that took place September of 2022. In the statement the FAA shared that it has mandated 21 corrective actions to the company that rage from a redesign of engine components to changes to Blue’s organizational structure.

Similar to the closing of SpaceX’s mishap investigation into Starship, this does not grant permission for resumption of flights of the New Shepard rocket. The FAA stated that Blue Origin must wait to “receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next New Shepard launch.”

In a comment to media and later posted to X (formally Twitter), Blue Origin says it “received the FAA’s letter and plan to fly soon.”

Neither the FAA nor Blue Origin have shared what the 21 corrective actions are or how many have already been implemented. A review by Blue Origin showed the fault of NS-23’s in-flight failure was found to be overheating in the BE-3 engine that caused it to be shutdown.

This failure of the engine prompted the New Shepard rocket to trigger the abort motor inside the capsule to save the science experiments. The uncrewed capsule later landed safely under parachutes in the desert of West Texas. The booster on the under hand crashed to the ground and was lost, however no property damage was reported.

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What ‘fly soon’ look like for Blue Origin?

NS-24, or whatever Blue will call the reflight of NS-23, will be just that – a redo of the science experiments flown on the failed mission according to reports. As you can see, there are perks of having an automated abort system even when the mission doesn’t have any humans onboard.

No dates have been given out for when NS-24 will launch but the same report that mentioned the mission will reply NS-23’s payloads also sated the launch could come in early October. Although the wild card is how much Blue Origin will share publicly before flying.

In the early flights, Blue Origin only shared video after the fact. Most of those flights were tests however, with its Goddard hopper or first versions of is New Shepard rocket. The company’s first livestream of a launch was NS-4 in 2016.

With this being Blue Origin’s first “return to flight” mission, we could very lightly see them not livestream the launch. However, we could just as likely see them want to show off their progress and ability to continue flying. Blue Origin’s launch stream have been notorious for being one big sales pitch for those that can afford the short hops to space but were also our main way to knowing the latest on New Glenn development.

For now we are waiting to see when the FAA amends New Shepard’s launch license to return to flight. Something that might be delayed due to the expected government shutdown due to budget disagreements in Congress this coming weekend.