Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin Expects Launch in 2023 After Rocket Mishap Review

Blue Origin LLC, the space launch vehicle startup founded by Amazon.com Inc. chair Jeff Bezos, expects next month to complete a review of a recent accident but won’t send another rocket aloft until sometime in 2023.

The company’s vice president of its New Shepard rocket’s mission and fight operations, Audrey Powers, told attendees Wednesday at a conference in Washington, D.C., that the technical assessment of the September mishap will be finished in December, and that it wouldn’t fly again until next year, a Blue Origin spokesperson confirmed in an emailed statement. Powers’ comments were tweeted earlier by a Washington Post journalist.

The Federal Aviation Administration is overseeing an investigation of the aborted launch of an uncrewed suborbital New Shepard rocket shortly after takeoff on Sept. 12. The mission was only carrying research payloads, but Blue Origin also has flown passengers on its rocket starting in July of 2021, when Bezos was part of a debut crewed mission.