 I quickly have some breaking news to bring you today as just before the recording of this episode, Blue Origin's NS23 cargo mission suffered from an in-flight abort. I believe I am correct in saying that this is the first use of an in-flight abort system in the US on a flight which wasn't a test of an in-flight abort system. The closest prior to NS23 was Mercury Redstone 1 which did ignite the abort tower but it wasn't due to a failure in the It was because a circuit shorted and the escape tower decided it no longer wanted to serve on the mission and left the capsule behind. At the time of writing, which is just after the orbit occurred, no official word has been given by Blue Origin of the cause. What we can work out from the livestream coverage is that just after hitting max Q when the aerodynamic loads are at their greatest on the vehicle, New Shepard 4's BE3 engine flamed out, the booster veered to the left before the capsule ignited the abort motor and separated.