WASHINGTON — Blue Origin says its next New Glenn launch will be as soon as late spring after completing an investigation into the failed booster landing on the vehicle’s first flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced March 31 it accepted the findings of an investigation led by Blue Origin into the inaugural flight of New Glenn on Jan. 16. While the vehicle’s upper stage reached orbit as planned, the first stage was unable to land on a Blue Origin landing ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
“The final mishap report identified the proximate cause of the mishap as an inability of New Glenn’s first stage to restart the engines, preventing a reentry burn from occurring, and resulting in the loss of the stage,” the FAA said in its statement. It noted that Blue Origin identified seven corrective actions, but did not enumerate them.
Completing the investigation allows Blue Origin to proceed with the rocket’s next flight, pending FAA verification that the company implemented those corrective actions. “The Blue Origin New Glenn vehicle is authorized to return to flight provided all other licensing requirements are met,” the FAA stated.
“Our ambitious attempt to land the booster, ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,’ was unsuccessful due to our three BE-4 engines not re-igniting properly,” the company said in a social media post published the same time as the FAA statement. “The report identified seven corrective actions, focusing on propellant management and engine bleed control improvements, which we’re already addressing.”
The company said its next flight was planned for late spring, which will include another booster landing attempt. The company did not provide a more specific schedule or identify any payload for the next New Glenn launch. A spokesperson for Blue Origin told SpaceNews that the company was not providing additional details beyond its social media post.
Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, said at the Commercial Space Conference Feb. 12 that the company was targeting late spring for the next New Glenn launch. He suggested in comments at the conference that problems getting propellant to the engines caused the loss of the booster, but declined to go into details citing the ongoing investigation.
“We’re confident that the propellant and bleed control work we’re doing will increase our chances of landing the booster on our next flight,” Limp said in a social media post March 31. “And like we’ve said all along, we’ll keep trying until we do.”
The FAA also announced March 31 that it accepted the findings of a separate investigation into the loss of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle on its seventh test flight, which took place the same day as the first New Glenn launch.
“The final mishap report cites the probable root cause for the loss of the Starship vehicle was stronger than anticipated vibrations during flight led to increased stress on, and failure of, the hardware in the propulsion system,” the FAA stated, which matched what SpaceX said about the loss of the Starship upper stage.
The FAA allowed SpaceX to proceed with the next Starship test flight even through that mishap investigation was still underway after completing what it called “the required and comprehensive safety review.” However, the Starship upper stage once again was lost at about the same phase of flight on that eighth test flight March 6.
The FAA stated that the investigation into the latest Starship test is still in progress, with no details from the agency or SpaceX about the potential root cause. “SpaceX may not launch Starship again until the FAA accepts the final mishap investigation report or makes a return to flight determination and all other licensing requirements are met,” the FAA stated.
