Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture plans to send its New Shepard suborbital spaceship on an uncrewed research mission as early as Dec. 18, marking the company’s first launch since a rocket engine malfunction spoiled a similar uncrewed mission more than a year ago.
In an update posted to X / Twitter, Blue Origin said the upcoming mission, known as NS24, would carry 33 science and research payloads — plus 38,000 postcards sent in by students as part of a program organized by the Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s educational nonprofit.
No further details were available, but it’s possible that at least some of the payloads (and postcards) have been carried over from the mission that went awry in September 2022. New Shepard’s launch escape system worked as planned for that NS23 mission, and the capsule was unharmed even though the booster was destroyed.
A successful uncrewed mission could smooth the way for the resumption of crewed flights soon afterward.
