Washington — The next semi -track flight of Blue Origin is a long -awaited demonstration of New Shepherd’s abilities that generate the gravity of the moon, not micro -gravity.
Blue Origin announced on January 24 that a new New Shepard flight is scheduled for the eastern time from 11:00 am on January 28 (the test site of the company in western Texas). The NS-29 mission carries 30 payloads, but does not carry it.
Unlike the previous flight of New Shepherd, which has experienced micro -gravity for several minutes at the top of the quasi -track orbital, the New Shepherd capsules rotate after separating from the booster using a reaction control thruster. The thruster rotates the capsule in about 11 revolutions per minute to simulate the gravity of the moon at the middle point of the payload locker in the capsule.
Blue Origin expects to provide at least two minutes of gravity to the peyload in the flight during the flight. This is much longer than the simulation of gravity in the moon that can be used on parabolic aircraft flights.
In this mission, 29 payloads were carried out in the capsule, of which 17 were provided through NASA’s flight program. The 30th payload flies outside the New Shepherd Booster and is exposed to the space environment.
Peyload is classified into six wide categories: resource use, dust reduction, advanced resident system, sensor and planned, small spacecraft technology, rush, descent, and landing. Most are from the NASA Center, but some are from Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin space technology category.
“This is a completely new way to bring the gravity of the moon to NASA and other lunar technical providers and accelerate research and technology at much lower cost,” said Blue Origin’s Supreme Manager Dave. Limp stated in a social media post.
This feature has been developed for several years. In March 2021, NASA announced a contract with Blue Origin, which supports the development of New Shepherd’s monthly gravity ability, and NASA provided an unspecified development fund and early purchase of New Shepherd’s payload space. 。
The company’s officials talked about the realization of partial gravitational flights before the announcement. In August 2020, Blue Origin’s Erica Wagner said that the company is studying the ability to rotate the capsule to create a gravity of the moon. At that time, she said that the first flight was planned in 2022.
Limp stated in the post that the function could be used at other partial gravity levels that exceed the gravity of the moon. “Furthermore, applying this New Shepard’s ability to strictly reflect the gravity environment of Mars and other solar systems in the future.”
