Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket to launch after 14

The New Shepard spacecraft is comprised of a booster rocket and a crew capsule. The capsule can accommodate up to six passengers, cargo, or both. The booster rocket is equipped with one BE-3PM engine that propels the capsule beyond the Kármán Line (the internationally agreed boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space). Upon reaching that altitude, passengers and cargo can experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returns safely to Earth.

The New Shephard capsule is flown autonomously without a human pilot and descends with the help of a set of parachutes to land safely in the Texas desert. The craft's rocket booster is reusable and returns to land on a concrete pad near the launch site. Blue Origin has flown 31 people past the edge of space with New Shepard.

“We’re targeting a launch window that opens on Dec. 18 for our next New Shepard payload mission,” Blue Origin said in social media posts, shortly after Bloomberg reported the target date. NS-24 will carry the same thirty-six science and research payloads and thousands of postcards from Club For Future that flew on the failed NS-23 flight. This payload consisted of NASA's AMPES hydrogen fuel cell in microgravity experiment and other instruments from universities and private companies.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) completed its investigation into the failed NS-23 mission over a year ago. It required Blue Origin to take corrective actions to improve structural performance during operation and organizational changes at the company earlier this year. Blue Origin released the findings of the NS-23 failure investigation in March 2023.

The investigation took over six months, during which little information was made public. The investigation found that the accident was caused by a failure in the BE-3PM engine. The engine failed due to higher-than-expected temperatures, which were the result of design changes made before the accident flight.

Corrective actions complete

The announcement of Blue Origin's new launch date indicates that the company has taken all necessary actions and obtained its modified launch license from the FAA. The updated license is valid until August 2025 and is limited to launches from Blue Origin's West Texas facilities exclusively, according to the regulator's website.