Blue Origin unmanned rocket launch fails

A rocket from Chief Bezos’s space travel company, Blue Origin, crashed shortly after launch on Monday, but the capsule carrying the experiments managed to land after activating its parachutes.

This is the first accident for the company, which has already taken tourists to the edge of space. This time there were no people in the capsule, only scientific experiments.

The New Shepard rocket was about a minute into the flight from West Texas when bright yellow flames appeared around the engine on the underside.

The capsule’s emergency abort system activated immediately, ejecting it from the top of the ship. Several minutes later, the capsule parachuted into a remote desert.

All Blue Origin rockets are now grounded until an investigation yields results, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported.

No damage or casualties were reported, said the FAA, which is in charge of public safety during commercial space launches and landings.

Blue Origin’s launch command was silent as the capsule ejected from the rocket, then announced: “It appears we experienced an anomaly with today’s flight. This was not in the plans.”

“Booster failure in today’s unmanned flight. Exhaust system worked as designed,” the Kent, Washington-based company tweeted about an hour after the incident.

The company reported shortly after that the rocket had crashed.

The mishap occurred when the rocket was traveling at almost 1,126 kilometers per hour at an altitude of about 8,500 meters. No video has been released showing the rocket, only the capsule descending, after the failure. It occurred around the point where the aircraft was under its maximum pressure level.

The rocket typically lands upright on a pad elsewhere in the desert and is later recycled for future flights.

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.