Bezos’ Blue Origin plans New Shepard rocket flight after 15-month grounding

Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin is planning to return its suborbital New Shepard rocket to flight as soon as Dec. 18, the company said on Tuesday as it looks to resume its space tourism business.

“We’re targeting a launch window that opens on Dec. 18 for our next New Shepard payload mission,” Blue Origin wrote on social network X, formerly known as Twitter.

New Shepard, which flies cargo and humans on short trips to the edge of space, has been grounded since a September 2022 uncrewed mission failed roughly a minute after liftoff from Texas, forcing the rocket’s capsule full of NASA experiments to safely eject mid-flight.