MaxQ ABORT! - Blue Origin's New Shepard Has Fiery Engine Failure In Flight 

Let us all be very clear: it is the most phallicly-shaped rocket ever designed, and it suffered a premature ejection lol

That looked brutal.

On the plus side for Blue Origin, having an unplanned in-flight abort shows that their abort system works properly in a non-test scenario. It's clearly not good that the system was needed and used, but bravo Blue Origin!

Another good phrase like that is "parts recovery turbine" for the "power recovery turbines" on the super fortress that would get killed by engine chunks coming out the exhaust.

"Engine rich exhaust", a phrase that fits perfectly alongside "Rapid Unplanned Disassembly" and "Lithobraking". 😂 Though in seriousness, I'm not sure I'd want to be William Shatner if that had happend during his ride on this rollercoaster. (EDIT: originally spelt lithobraking as lithobreaking)

Like an ejection seat, you never want to exercise it. But it is impressive to see it actually work. As a next step, I’d like to see the time series velocity data to estimate the acceleration experienced. I think you’re right - it won’t be pretty.

Thank you for reporting so quickly and so thoroughly on this event. Great job! 🙂

Nice timely response. Many thanks for the channel!

Looks like the "Zero-G" notification on the UI is just tied to capsule separation event, because it shows up right as "Separation / Zero-G" step activates on the left. At least the separation step is triggered by actual telemetry data as it looks. The progress bar is not jumping up there though, probably because the MECO step was missed.

It would be interesting to know how many G's the crew would have experienced. That looked brutal.

I came right to your channel after getting word of this happening and watching the replay, thank you for taking the time for a quick explanation!

Thanks for your quick assessment of the situation.

A firey but mostly peaceful mission.

This is what I call a "successful failure". While the booster fail it was a real world test even if unplanned of the abort eject system and it worked perfectly.

thanks Scott, for keeping us in the loop

Thanks for getting this video out this fast!

It appears the abort went well. You can see the rocket yaw a bit out of parameters and it immediately initiated abort.

The emergency abort seems like a more exciting ride than the regular one. This may drive demand up rather than down.

Thanks for the update,Scott!

Wow that capsule peaced out with the upmost quickness! Impressive to see this system in action.

Scott I have never sent you a note before but I just want to tell you that you are such a fantastic source of great info. You speak so the everyday man can understand you. I cant say enough nice things about your videos. You set a standard that others can only dream off. Never stop my friend.

Nice seeing that lifeboat work as intended. That little thing boogies when it separates from the booster

I was thinking that you would share that story. Thank you Scott Manley

“Engine rich exhaust” is as clever and subtly funny as it is dark.

It's good to see the abort system actually function in an emergency --- as every engineer knows, there's a big difference between how a system behaves in a simulated emergency and how it behaves in a real one... but that looks like a really rough ride. The capsule's slewing from side to side and at one point seems to be accelerating sideways. Is that _after_ the main acceleration and we're just seeing residual flame coming out of the solid rocket motor, or did something actually go wrong?

That was a very rapid yeet of the capsule. Glad it worked, but wow it looks like that would have been unpleasant, just blasting way ahead of a booster at Max-q

Indeed Scott, fly safe!

"Engine-rich exhaust", what a perfect decription. "Bob, I think you might have something wrong with your car, that smoke don't look right." "Hmm, small chunks of the stuff inside has come lose and is now part of the combustion." "I see, so you're running a bit engine-rich then?" "Yeah."

The acceleration of the escape system is unreal. Nice analysis and video, Scott.

Thanks for the quick analysis.

Thanks for UR work. Got me since KSP! Keep em coming.

In my radial engine days that was described as a:"parts in the oil screen" moments.

I experienced an ejection in a MB J5A seat and my back still hasn't fully recovered 38 years later. Granted the reclined positions the crew here would have been better but that's still a of G's to come from out of nowhere. At least I got a 3 or 4 second warning it was coming, that crew would have swallowed their bubble gum for sure.

Thanks for the quick upload. I had heard only rumors at work.

If I were in the ride queue, I would feel reassured by seeing the abort system work correctly. I think it may be quite a while before riding a bomb is as uneventful as most car rides. Until then, I don't think we can hope for more than a potentially bone snapping ride away from the bomb when needed.

Thanks for the quick video on the anomaly. Would've been a wild ride for any passengers!

That the abort systems functioned flawlessly would make me more inclined to take a ride, not less ..... but I am an engineer, so maybe 'normal' people would see it differently.

Although short video, best one I've seen yet. Manley is on it!

While I get people being hesitant to board this thing after watching that happen, I still am pleased to see companies exploring safety options in spaceflight. Heck, I’m pleased to see them seriously exploring manned spaceflight at all, let alone in a manner that isn’t cordoned off for a few highly-trained pilots doing super-precise government operations. The desire to open spaceflight up to the public is going to make huge leaps in the industry as a whole because it forces more of the problems that were once either laid upon the crew, or simply hand-waved as “acceptable risks” into being engineered out of the system entirely. I’m seriously hoping to see interplanetary travel before I die, is all I’m saying.

Good to see that the safety system worked, even if the crew capsule was empty.

Thank you for being so quick to put out a video...

Excellent breaking news video. Forever grateful to your channel - Eamon, real Dublin

As always, great video on current events in this field. I was wondering if you, @Scott Manley, would be doing a video on the two Firefly launch attempts these last two days?

Really interesting to see the emergency escape system in action!

If there had been crew, their underwear would have definitely sustained injury when the launch abort system fired.

Thanks Scott! Very good analysis for a quick response. I believe the booster went "kablooey" and until I see video or photo evidence otherwise that's what I maintain. It's hard not to have a catastrophic failure of a rocket still heavy with lots of explosive fuel. Wish we had video of the booster too. But I hope the B.O. team learns, recovers, and presses onward from this.

This is a stunningly good outcome. Not a massive fan of BO but this is actually confidence-inspiring.

These 'Fly Safe!' words of farewell just took on a whole new meaning😮

Now they have, uh, ZERO flight-ready engines.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has video of the booster doing its abrupt deceleration at the end of its flight, especially as it probably had a fair amount of hydrogen fuel onboard when that happened.

Thank you, Sir!

Good info Scott! I wonder how hot the Launch abort engine makes the cabin while in use.

that tumble it does makes my whole body hurt just seeing it. thats rough rough ride. in my view the big single booster if its gets even slightly off axes trust its going to feel really bad in there. unless your head is very well supported its going to hurt for a long time

Great (and super fast video). One thing I was curios about. Isn't there a flight termination system on the booster? From the description, it doesn't seem like one activated.

Excellent informative video

scott will you please make a series of videos teaching your viewers astrodynamics going from the basics to advanced?

Looks like the furthest one could get from zero G. I would love to see the positive and then negative G's that a passenger would have experienced.

Excellent update thank you. How many of those boosters has BE made?

Have a great day Scotty:-) just got back from school

Still good to see the abort system worked!

Someone was ready with their finger on the spacebar

Imagine being pinned to your seat during a rocket launch, and then getting pinned *even harder* by your crew-pod ejecting from potential doom

I must say “engine rich exhaust” is the best new terminology I’ve learned in a long while!

Imagine the forces on your chest heart and lungs when that abort engine kicked in. Holy cow. Older people would have not survived that!!! If they were on onboard like the first couple of flights...

These comments are so much more wholesome than the comments on the official webcast. Most of them are hating on it, saying that it'll get spun as a success that the abort system worked, and stuff. As someone with a passing knowledge of engineering, I'm quite happy that the abort system worked.

Thanks for the update Scott. I'd like to invite you to the Reno Air Races. I'm with Team Stihl Race 30 and we hope to do very well this year. Races are just beginning and end this Sunday. Come join the fun.

I saw this launch on streaming, this was interesting. For a split-second I thought the whole thing had completely exploded including the crew cabin, glad that didn't happen. It turned out to be an inadvertent test of the escape system. I'd be curious to see some numbers on what kind of accelerations were experienced, I hope they were in tolerance. The did look like a rough ride but I'm sure it's better than hitting the desert floor at 300 MPH.

Thanks Scott for keeping us informed when so little is really known.

If you look in the video of the capsule landing you can just barely see what looks like a fire on the left side - could be the wreck of the booster

Looking at the progress line on the far left the failure happened after MaxQ when the engine was throttling up again. Add the extra acceleration of the abort engine and that would have been a brutal G load for a few seconds. It would be interesting to see any sensor data from inside the escape capsule.

Great slo-mo video!

Apparently Lorena Bobbitt was the lead flight engineer for this mission.

I wonder what that roughness of the abort system would imply to the health of the occupants. Just a scary moment? Broken ribs? Concussions? But still, it's always good to see a rocket abort system working as advertised.

I wrote a song called "Engine Rich Exhaust" after hearing you use the term. Into the lexicon it goes.

Manned launches use a different booster, so that's still around. This one was used on unmanned launches only, such as this one, and this was it's 9th flight.

A question came up under the video of the failure. Did the breakboostersystem work properly on touchdown? Its hard to tell for me as an amateur (and a lot of people). The landingspeed looked at least not that slow. Anyways, thanks for the video and have a nice day :)

I thought it was kind of odd that they were flying a non-passenger manifest. Seems like the research value of that sort of flight would be minimal. Now I'm wondering if they had hardware that was end of life but they wanted to continue to push it to test the durability? Much less risky to do that without souls on board. Was this a calculated move or just a heck of a coincidence?

Once again a lot of Scott Manley classics, such as „engine rich exhaust“ and „this is very much NOT like zero G“! Hilarious!

The automatic capsule ejection worked perfectly!

Good to see the abort system working as intended!

I don't think looking by the actual video from count down to landing, the retro thrust system worked on the crew capsule? I didn't see any jet of thrust before it hit the ground and it hit hard!

It would be really interesting to see the real G inside that thing. 😬 Anyway, thanks, Scott! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

This was Booster 3.0. The one used for crewed suborbital missions is Booster 4.0, a slightly advanced version that is licensed to carry people up

this is why i had my skepticism on reusability limitations for rocket engines. what SpaceX achieved with f9 is truly remarkable

The "zero g" text on the screen might show up when the capsule separates from the booster. ... And that's normally really the zero-g phase, because there would not be any forces acting on the capsule. But not so here... But they had zero-g around the top of their flight, after the engine was out and before the air drag was too high due to the high speed down in their not so high altitude. At least after the drogue chutes deployed, there was no zero-g any more. Maybe that's the time when the message "zero-g" would automatically be turned off, maybe.

"Engine-rich Exhaust" I'll never get tired of it.

That abort disconnect looked rough! Sloshing around but at least they survived

Also, the retro-booster firing didn't appear to happen just before hitting the ground. That dust cloud very much appears to have been from hitting HARD

Here’s my completely unprofessional opinion, my guess is that something failed in the “tap-off” section of the engine, that ended up shooting hot exhaust at the turbo pump, and incoming fuel (the jet of flames to the left).

I didn't get to see the main ship get blown up or whatever they do with it...just the capsule escaping. I thought someone would show both...but you make it all very interesting! Cheers to you.

Scott, you lost me at "Engine Rich Exhaust!" ABSOLUTELY Nailed it! Count Von Braun couldn't have done that any better. (I just might use the line, when working on gas or Diesel piston engines.) steve

I know the Blue Origin folks didn't want this to go bad...but it's an awesome learning experience for the entire team.

If someone pays the insane price to go on the ride, and it blows up and does this, do you get your money back?

Well it’s good to see the emergency abort works

This would be reassuring to me.

After watching the landing, and then a couple of landings from other flights, it did look a bit harder than normal. I would love to see a side-by-side comparison of the final three seconds of every landing, side-by-side.

This should give confidence to current and potential customers as well as regulators that their system works and would have saved the lives of anybody on board.

What I find interesting is the altitude reported of the booster after "touchdown" of the booster. If there is an underflow or similar? It also updates as if the sensor still reads and transmits increasing values.

*good escape system test*

It looked like it hit the ground under the chutes harder than in other missions. A rough ride all around for sure. I'm wondering what's left of the booster also, I will look forward to your next video on the topic.