The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) closed its investigation into the failure of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle more than a year ago. This failure occurred on September 12, 2022, when an unmanned research mission launched from the Blue Origin Space Station in West Texas. Approximately 65 seconds after launch, New Shepard’s reusable first stage booster encountered a serious problem and returned to Earth.

The vehicle capsule activated the emergency evacuation system and slowly descended to the desert floor under the parachutes. Blue Origin officials said that the 36 research payloads launched during the mission were not damaged and that the accident did not cause any injuries or material damage.

The company soon launched an investigation into the crash, overseen by the FAA and involving the National Transportation Safety Board and NASA’s Flight Capability Program and Commercial Crew Office. In March, Blue Origin announced that it had pinpointed the cause of the crash, pointing to a “thermostructural failure” in the nozzle on the BE-3PM engine that powered New Shepard’s first stage.

A recently completed FAA study agrees with this conclusion:

“The final report indicates that the proximate cause of the accident on September 12, 2022 was engine nozzle structural failure resulting from higher than expected engine operating temperatures,” agency officials wrote in a news release today (September 27).

The report also provides Blue Origin with a to-do list before returning New Shepard to flight. FAA officials wrote in a statement today that the company was required to “implement 21 corrective actions to prevent a recurrence of the accident, including redesign of engine and nozzle components and organizational changes to improve in-service structural performance.”

“Blue Origin must take all corrective actions affecting public safety and obtain a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety and other relevant regulatory requirements prior to the next launch of New Shepard,” they added.

It is unclear what these necessary “organizational changes” might be; The FAA report is not being made public because it contains classified data and sensitive “export control” information, according to the agency.

But we just learned that Blue Origin is making some pretty big personnel changes: CEO Bob Smith will step down in December and be replaced by Amazon chief Dave Limp. (Jeff Bezos founded Amazon and Blue Origin.)

The September 2022 mission was the 23rd launch overall for New Shepard. Six of these flights were carrying people. Around the time of New Shepard’s retirement, Virgin Galactic, its main rival in the suborbital space tourism industry, launched four crewed missions with its VSS Unity spacecraft. Source