Jarrett Jones, senior vice president for New Glenn at Blue Origin, said that the investigation into the failure of the New Shepard-23 mission is still in its early stages and it would be premature to make any conclusions. The NS-23 mission was Blue Origin's 23rd overall flight and the fourth of this year. 

“We are not prepared to talk about what actually happened,” Jones said at World Satellite Business Week on September 13 as per Space News. “It’s a little premature to assume that it was something related to the engine.” The NS-23 mission took off from West Texas on September 12 but the New Shepard booster mounted with the New Shepard capsule shut down just one minute five seconds after liftoff.

While the capsule carrying 36 science experiments landed safely, Blue Origin later confirmed that the booster crashed on Earth. Although speculations are being made about the failure resulting from an issue in the booster’s BE-3 engine, Jones said it would be too early to draw conclusions. He, however, said that the safety system of the rocket which jettisoned the capsule away from the Booster worked exactly as planned and helped save the payloads from getting destroyed. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation into the incident and will not allow Blue Origin to conduct another mission till the investigation is complete.

Booster failure on today’s uncrewed flight. Escape system performed as designed. pic.twitter.com/xFDsUMONTh

Earlier on September 12, Blue Origin shared a clip of the booster dropping dead soon after the launch and the capsule rocketing away to save itself. In just a little over one minute, the capsule's Emergency Escape System was activated and it landed safely in the desert using the four large parachutes. "During today’s flight, the capsule escape system successfully separated the capsule from the booster. The booster impacted the ground. There are no reported injuries; all personnel have been accounted for", the Jeff Bezos-owned firm said in a statement. 

The company uses two New Shepard systems (booster-capsule combination), one for crewed and uncrewed missions each. Notably, this was the second mission failure for Blue Origin after the first incident in 2015 when the booster crashed during landing in its debut launch.