/sci/ - Science & Math

FAA closes New Shepard mishap investigation (Foust), same from space.com
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https://spacenews.com/faa-closes-new-shepard-mishap-investigation/
> FAA closes New Shepard mishap investigation
> WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration announced Sept. 26 it had closed the mishap investigation into a failed launch by Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle more than a year ago, but said the vehicle is not yet cleared to resume flights.
> The FAA said in a statement that is closed the investigation into the New Shepard payload-only suborbital mission designated NS-23 that took place in September 2022. On that flight, the main engine failed about a minute into flight, triggering the abort motor in the vehicle’s crew capsule. That capsule, carrying payloads but no people, landed safely under parachutes, while the propulsion module crashed.
> The FAA said in the statement that the proximate cause of the mishap was “the structural failure of an engine nozzle caused by higher than expected engine operating temperatures.” That matches with what Blue Origin itself announced in March, when its investigation concluded that changes in the design of a boundary layer cooling system for the vehicle’s BE-3PM engine caused an increase in nozzle heating, including a “hot streak” aligned with the location of fatigue in the nozzle that led to its structural failure.
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https://www.space.com/faa-closes-investigation-blue-origin-launch-failure
> FAA closes investigation of Blue Origin launch failure