Blue Origin rocket crashes shortly after liftoff | Video

Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin, suffered its first failure on Monday when a rocket crashed back to Earth shortly after lift-off.

The uncrewed Blue Origin rocket carrying research payloads crashed shortly after liftoff from Texas, reports AFP. Luckily, the capsule carrying experiments escaped and floated safely back to Earth – as captured in a video that Blue Origin later shared on social media.

“Booster failure on today’s uncrewed flight. Escape system performed as designed,” the company tweeted. Their footage shows the capsule firing emergency thrusters to separate itself from its booster rocket within a minute of the launch.
It was the 23rd mission for the New Shepard rocket program, named after the first American in space, and the first to end in failure.

While the rocket was uncrewed, meaning no people were aboard, scientists were encouraged by the fact that the escape system performed as it was supposed to. Had people been aboard the rocket, they would likely have survived.

Blue Origin noted that the rocket "impacted the ground" instead of landing upright as it normally does.