Blue Origin NS-24 was an uncrewed sub-orbital spaceflight mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, which launched on 20 December 2023. It was New Shepards first flight in over a year since the failure of Blue Origin NS-23. It was Blue Origin's 24th overall flight to go into space.^[1][2]

Flight

The vehicle lifted off at 16:42:28 UTC on December 19, 2023, from LS-1 at Blue Origins' Corn Ranch launch site in Texas, United States. There were no issues during the flight, like there were on Blue Origin NS-23. Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) occurred at T+02:25. The capsule reached apogee at T+04:07, reaching an altitude of 351,247 feet (107,060 meters), while the booster reached an apogee of 350,855 feet (106,940 meters).^[2][3][4] The booster touched down successfully at T+07:27 on the North Landing Pad.^[1][4] At 10:52:41 am CST (16:52:41 UTC), the crew capsule landed at the Corn Ranch site, 10 minutes and 13 seconds after liftoff.^[2] The booster supporting this mission was New Shepard Booster 4 (NS4), this was its 9th total flight with a 502-day turnaround time, while the capsule on top was the RSS H. G. Wells.^[5]

Payload

There were 33 payloads on this mission from NASA, academia, research institutions and commercial companies. This flight brought the total number of payloads flown on the New Shepard vehicle to 150. There were also 38,000 postcards from students across the world, provided by the Club for the Future organization, a Blue Origin nonprofit, as part of its "Postcards to Space" program. According to Blue Origin, more than half the payloads on NS-24 were developed and flown with support from NASA.^[2][6][7]

References