The New Shepard rocket, which lifted off from Blue Origin’s facility in west Texas on Monday morning, was carrying no passengers. It carried dozens of experimental objects that were to be tested for a short period in the weightless environment at the edge of space. A live broadcast of the event showed a sudden burst of flame engulfing the rocket at 29,000 feet, just over a minute after launch. Almost immediately, the capsule atop the booster rocket — which contained the payload and would be the area where people would sit during a manned mission — detached from the rocket and parachuted to the ground in what appeared to be a relatively soft landing. “It appears we encountered an anomaly with today’s flight. This was unplanned,” said the commentator on the Blue Origin live stream. “You can see how our backup security systems kicked in today.” The failure is being investigated by the FAA, with New Shepard grounded until the investigation is complete. Describing the matter as an “accident,” the FAA confirmed there were no injuries or damage to public property. “The resulting anomaly triggered the capsule’s escape system,” the FAA said in a statement. “The capsule landed safely and the booster impacted the designated danger area.” Although there were no people on board, the incident could hamper Blue Origin’s ability to sell its bold vision of space tourism to customers. The New Shepard rocket carried 32 people into space, including Bezos and Star Trek icon William Shatner. On all of these missions, the booster was able to return to the surface of the earth without incident so that it could be used again. The rocket had previously suffered a partial failure during its development stage, before carrying people.

Bezos’ space company, which also plans to help Nasa with more ambitious missions to the moon and potentially beyond, is competing with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to become the leading provider of space tourism with a promise of an exciting, if short , ride out of the earth. atmosphere. Bezos’ system enjoys the bragging rights of driving passengers higher than Branson’s. Blue Origin’s capsule has reached beyond the Kármán line, 100 kilometers above sea level, which is internationally considered the limit of space. Virgin Galactic reaches about 83 kilometers, enough to pass NASA’s definition of leaving Earth.