Update for 10:44 am ET: Blue Origin called off the planned launch of its NS-24 mission on New Shepard today (Dec. 18) due to a ground system issue. A new launch target for this week will be announced once it is selected, Blue Origin says.
Blue Origin is expected to launch its first mission in more than 15 months this week after a series of delays, and you can watch the action live when the time comes.
Blue Origin‘s New Shepard suborbital vehicle is now scheduled to lift off from the company’s West Texas site sometime this week during a window that will open at 9:30 am ET (1430 GMT) on launch day. Blue Origin tried to launch the mission on Monday (Dec. 18), but scrubbed the attempt due to a “ground system issue” at its Launch Site One pad.
“We’re scrubbing #NS24 today due to a ground system issue the team is troubleshooting,” Blue Origin wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We’ll provide a new launch target for this week soon.”
When a new launch day is selected, you’ll be able to watch the action live via Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Space.com will carry the company’s feed if possible. Coverage could begin at 9:10 a.m. EST (1410 GMT) on launch day, based on past webcast schedules by the company.
Related: Blue Origin says it knows what caused its New Shepard rocket launch to fail
New Shepard is a reusable rocket-capsule combo that flies people and payloads to suborbital space. The vehicle hasn’t flown since Sept. 12, 2022, when it suffered an anomaly during an uncrewed research flight.
That failure resulted in the loss of New Shepard’s first-stage booster, though the capsule landed safely under parachutes and the 36 research payloads survived intact.
Blue Origin’s mishap investigation identified the cause of the crash as a “thermo-structural failure” of the nozzle on the engine that powers New Shepard’s booster. The company has implemented corrective measures and is now ready to fly again.
Like the September 2022 flight, today’s mission — known as NS-24, because it will be the 24th overall liftoff for New Shepard — is uncrewed. It will carry 33 research payloads, more than half of them “developed and flown with support from NASA,” Blue Origin wrote in a mission description.
“Others come from K-12 schools, universities, and STEAM-focused organizations,” they added. (STEAM stands for “science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.”)
Today’s flight will also tote 38,000 postcards for Club for the Future, a nonprofit founded by Blue Origin that aims to get young people interested in space science and exploration.
