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New Shepherd 25 with third parachute not fully inflated.
Blue Origin sent a seventh crew into suborbital space on May 19, with the New Shepard (NS) capsule returning to the company’s West Texas spaceport with one of its three main parachutes not fully inflating.
The reusable New Shepard booster lifted off at 10:35 a.m. EDT to begin Blue Origin’s 25th suborbital spaceflight and its first with passengers aboard since Aug. 4, 2022. The company grounded the New Shepard vehicle to address a problem with the booster’s nozzle, which triggered an accident during launch of NS-23—an uncrewed payload flight—on Sept. 12, 2022.
New Shepard returned to flight 15 months later on the successful Dec. 19, 2023, uncrewed NS-24 mission.
The six-member crew for the NS-25 mission included former Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight, who in 1961 became the first African-American selected as astronaut candidate. He completed the Air Force flight training program and was recommended to enter the NASA Astronaut Corps but was not selected. He went on to become a successful sculptor.
“It was the first real deal that I got involved in that I wasn’t successful at,” Dwight, 90, told Blue Origin crew liaison Laura Stiles in a broadcast conversation after the flight.
“In the back of my mind, I had to sublimate it, make it go away and say ‘Well, I didn’t need that anyway.’ But I did. Thank you so much. I am ecstatic,” he said.
Dwight’s flight was sponsored by the nonprofit Space for Humanity’s Citizen Astronaut Program. He was joined for the NS-25 mission by paying passengers venture capitalist Mason Angel, French brewery founder Sylvain Chiron, software entrepreneur Kenneth Hess, retired CPA and adventurer Carol Schaller, and pilot and wellness entrepreneur Gopi Thotakura.
After separating from the New Shepard booster about 2.5 min. after liftoff, the crew capsule reached an apogee of 347,464 ft. above ground level before beginning the descent back to Earth. Video of the capsule’s return showed one of its three main parachutes had failed to fully inflate.
“The capsule is designed to safely land with one parachute,” a company spokesperson said in an email to Aerospace DAILY after landing. “The overall mission was a success.”
The company declined to provide the capsule’s speed at touchdown, nor how the parachute issue might impact New Shepard’s manifest for the rest of the year.
Blue Origin also is preparing for the debut launch this year of its first orbital-class space transport, the New Glenn.
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