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Space United States Science

Bezos Rocket Crashes After Liftoff, Only Experiments Aboard (apnews.com) 81

A rocket crashed back to Earth shortly after liftoff Monday in the first launch accident for Jeff Bezos' space travel company, but the capsule carrying experiments managed to parachute to safety. From a report: No one was aboard the Blue Origin flight, which used the same kind of rocket as the one that sends paying customers to the edge of space. The rockets are now grounded pending the outcome of an investigation, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The New Shepard rocket was barely a minute into its flight from West Texas when bright yellow flames shot out from around the single engine at the bottom. The capsule's emergency launch abort system immediately kicked in, lifting the craft off the top. Several minutes later, the capsule parachuted onto the remote desert floor. The rocket came crashing down, with no injuries or damage reported, said the FAA, which is in charge of public safety during commercial space launches and landings. Blue Origin's launch commentary went silent when the capsule catapulted off the rocket Monday morning, eventually announcing: "It appears we've experienced an anomaly with today's flight. This wasn't planned."

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Bezos Rocket Crashes After Liftoff, Only Experiments Aboard

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  • by CoolDiscoRex ( 5227177 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:06PM (#62875391) Homepage

    I told him the blood of factory workers couldn't be used as rocket fuel, but did he believe me?

    Noooooo!

    Well, I bet he does now.

    • Blood ? Nope.
      Actually he uses urine from overworked Warehouse employees.
      They are not allowed to take much time to drink, and not much time to go to the toilet, so their urine is very concentrated, and from that you can manufacture salpeter giving you 10% more delta-V.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Ya test everything that you think you should.
    Then something happens to identify something you didn't test.
    Now you test for that as well.

    • by suss ( 158993 )

      Sounds like the plot to the TV Series "Chernobyl".

  • by drummerboybac ( 1003077 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:15PM (#62875421)
    Jebediah Kerman? Seriously, this sounds like Kerbal Space Program trying to gather Science to get more parts.
    • by stooo ( 2202012 )

      it's exactly that.
      Doing RUDs instead of simulations and reviews is the best way to succeed faster.
      I'm happy to see BO starting real stuff at last.
      That means real progress, even if the first 5 rockets mostly explode.

      it's exactly getting science advanced (at least for you)

  • No damage (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TrumpShaker ( 4855909 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:17PM (#62875427)
    "The rocket came crashing down, with no injuries or damage reported, said the FAA"

    If the rocket wasn't damaged, shoot it off again!
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Damage to the *payload*. This was obviously not a good result, but the launch escape system worked impressively well.

      • No, the payload was ejected and parachuted down. That sentence was specifically about the rocket, and it said no damages. I assume they meant to stuff on the ground but it's a poorly worded sentence and deserves to be made fun of.
        • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

          The statement was from the FAA. The FAA is concerned with everyone who is NOT involved in the flight. From the FAA point of view, there was no damage. The condition of the rocket doesn't matter to the FAA.

          • From the FAA point of view, there was no damage

            That's how I took it as well, no damage to other structures or aircraft.

            From the look of the very hard landing, I would be surprised if no experiments were damaged. But at least the capsule was intact so there's a chance they escaped harm, you have to think everything would have been pretty well padded just for the normal rocket G-force.

            • From what I saw the landing looked pretty standard for a New Shepherd capsule so I doubt anything was damaged but they also probably didn't achieve any desired scientific goals as the amount of time they spent in zero-g was likely negligible. The reason why it looks rough is because they use retro thrusters just before touchdown to cushion the landing, and those tend to kick up a lot of dust.

              • The reason why it looks rough is because they use retro thrusters just before touchdown to cushion the landing, and those tend to kick up a lot of dust.

                I thought I read elsewhere those landing retro thrusters failed, that's part of why I thought the landing might have been pretty hard.

      • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        Damage to the *payload*. This was obviously not a good result, but the launch escape system worked impressively well.

        Indeed, I could bet the Challenger astronauts would have liked to have it available to them.

  • by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:19PM (#62875431)

    Rockets are hard. This failure demonstrated to potential customers that, "Even if something catastrophic happens, we're being very careful with your stuff."

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:31PM (#62875479)

    [ ] Handled with Care

  • by wonkavader ( 605434 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:35PM (#62875509)

    Is it just me or did that capsule land pretty darn hard?

    I don't think humans would be happy after that touchdown, and I wonder if the payload actually survived.

    • There were supposed to be retro rockets that fired just prior to landing, but they did not. This was NOT a textbook recovery.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's going to be a while before they can fly that thing with humans again. They will have to re-test the abort system.

        Eh, it's only Bezos' phallic folly anyway. Sub orbital flights to the edge of space for people with too much money.

      • There were supposed to be retro rockets that fired just prior to landing, but they did not. This was NOT a textbook recovery.

        They absolutely did, the cloud of dust you see on impact is created by the retro rockets that fire just before touchdown. This was a good recovery. You can see the same happening on a perfectly executed Soyouz capsule: https://youtu.be/CYqW0rDEjnE?t... [youtu.be]

  • by caseih ( 160668 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:36PM (#62875515)

    Headline and summary leave a lot to be desired. Yes the booster failed and ultimately did crash. Looks like an engine failure (so-called engine rich exhaust problem!) at max Q and the computer shut it down and fired off the capsule escape system, which worked as designed. Had there been passengers onboard they would have been taken for a very wild ride and most likely injured, but they would have survived. The escape system worked well just as it had been tested in the past. However this booster engine failure will result in a halt to all Blue Origin passenger flights for a while until the problem is identified and rectified and the rocket is cleared for flight again. A set back to be sure.

    The gee forces experienced in the capsule would have been pretty extreme. By the time the escape fired, the capsule was about 0 gee. The escape rocket would accelerate the capsule rapidly after which the capsule would then rapidly de-accelerate.

    Scott Manley has a nice summary of what happened on his channel.

  • New Shepard crash (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sumergo ( 2510518 ) on Monday September 12, 2022 @03:52PM (#62875587)
    An "off-nominal situation" seems to be "double-plus ungood".
  • The poor rocket suffers from premature payload deployment.
  • and Bezos' entire capsule can be reused again.
    With the SLS the capsule has to go through a strict inspection and probably only the door handle for the toilet will pass the test for re-usage.

  • The booster did crash, but the capsule was ejected and landed normally. Basically, the rocket had a failure, but the capsule was just fine.
  • One of Elons rockets was re-used 14 times a few days ago.

  • "The capsule's emergency launch abort system immediately kicked in, lifting the craft off the top."

    So it circumcised itself? Ouch!

  • Where broken seals can delay a launch for months, or cause a catastrophic explosion when they are missed in inspection.

    It's no surprise Space X would face the same issues.

    • Where broken seals can delay a launch for months, or cause a catastrophic explosion when they are missed in inspection.

      It's no surprise Space X would face the same issues.

      You do realize that this rocket isn't a SpaceX rocket but the only flying rocket of Blue Origin right?

  • Rocketry is the art of blowing something up very slowly.

  • Sabotage from Spacex?  Should be investigated!
  • Bezos sued NASA to get space business from them at double the cost SpaceX is charging. Bezos created an online store, while Musk reimagined the space industry. NASA should cancel Bezos' contract, but probably won't because they're used to wasting money anyway.

Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. -- Norman Augustine

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