American company Blue Origin plans to launch the New Shepard rocket for the first time since the accident more than a year ago. The launch window from the facility in West Texas will open at 17:30 Moscow time. This mission, called NS-24, will carry scientific experiment equipment, more than half of which was developed by Blue Origin in partnership with NASA.

As a result of the accident in September 2022, although the capsule part of the spacecraft landed with a parachute, the propellant part of the rocket fell to the ground. There was no crew on board. The crash led to an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in September 2023, which concluded that the crash was caused by higher-than-expected temperature in the rocket engine.

The FAA ordered Blue Origin to make changes to allow relaunches, including the design of some engine parts. The FAA confirmed Sunday that it had approved Blue Origin’s application to resume flights.

Blue Origin uses the New Shepard rocket for space tourism flights from Texas. To date, 31 people, including the company’s founder Jeff Bezos himself, have made short flights into space.

Blue Origin competes in the space tourism market with Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson. Blue Origin is also developing a heavy rocket called New Glenn, which is scheduled to make its first flight next year. New Shepard is a 98-meter-long rocket designed to carry payloads of up to 45 metric tons into low Earth orbit while en route to a lower altitude.