VAN HORN, Texas (AP) — An unmanned spacecraft bankrolled by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos failed during a recent test flight.
In a brief online post Friday, Bezos said "we lost the vehicle" at 45,000 feet.
Bezos founded Blue Origin to develop a vertical takeoff and landing rocketship that would fly passengers to suborbital space. It recently won money from NASA to compete to go into orbit as a space taxi now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.
The mishap occurred during a test flight last week from Blue Origin's West Texas spaceport. The ultra-secretive company notified the Federal Aviation Administration about the launch and only acknowledged the accident publicly on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported about the failure, said the test was not part of the development agreement with NASA.