While Blue Origin’s aspirations of flying regularly have not yet come to pass given the one year hiatus after the nozzle induced-destruction of the uncrewed New Shepard NS-23 flight, it at least has now taken a step forward after a successful reflight at 1642 GMT from Van Horn, Texas, USA on 17 December 2023. The Crew Capsule was flown in unmanned condition. a reflight of the experiments on the failed previous mission were known to be on the flight, as were 38,000 postcards. The booster landed back on its pad about seven and half minutes after launch. About 10 minutes after launch the crew capsule made a parachute assisted/rocket slowed touch down.
New Shepard booster from the NS-24 reflight mission lands safely. Courtesy: Blue Origin
