Blue Origin, the company founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has launched an investigation following an incident during its first crewed flight in two years, in which one of the parachutes on the New Shepard capsule failed to fully inflate. The company’s New Shepard rocket launched on May 19 carrying a six-person crew to suborbital space. The NS-25 mission saw the crew capsule land to conclude the flight, but only two of its three parachutes were fully inflated, SpaceNews reported.
The rocket’s booster exploded mid-flight and its capsule abandoned ship while traveling at roughly 700 miles per hour and at 29,000 feet above the ground. Blue Origin identified a “thermo-structural failure of the engine nozzle” as the reason behind the rocket’s failed launch. At the time, New Shepard was carrying 36 payloads, more than half of which belonged to NASA, but there was no crew on board the capsule.