Blue Origin New Shepard NS-24 Return to Flight

Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space vehicle is scheduled to lift off at 16:37 UTC on Monday, 2023-12-19 with a two hour launch window. (New Shepard countdowns tend to have holds at seemingly random times for undisclosed reasons, so take that time as a “no earlier than”.)

This will be the first New Shepard launch since the NS-23 launch failure on 2022-09-12 in which failure of the BE-3PM engine nozzle led to loss of the booster rocket. The capsule, which was carrying only cargo on this flight, was saved by the escape mechanism and landed safely by parachute.

This flight is also a cargo-only mission which will carry 33 payloads “and 38,000 Club for the Future postcards from students around the world”.

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