Blue Origin has launched its first type of mission for the suborbital space.
Founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the company sent a new reusable Shepard Suborbital Vehicle Aloft (February 4th) from a West Texas launch site at 11am (1600 GMT; 10am, Texas). Ta. That was a week later than originally planned. The blue origins were due to uncooperative weather and rocket avionics issues, from the January 28 attempt.
Today’s launch begins Blue Origin’s Concrowed NS-29 mission. The flight went well, with both the booster and capsule returning to Earth for a safe touchdown. However, one of the three parachutes in the new Shepherd Crew capsule appeared not to be fully open during the descent. However, during the live stream of the company’s flight, launch commentators emphasized that the capsules were designed to safely land on fewer than three parachutes.
The two stages of the new Shepherd (booster and capsule) were separated on time 2.5 minutes after lift-off. Booster returned to Earth for a vertical touchdown on the landing pad in just over seven minutes. The capsule followed the suit with a parachute assisted touchdown in the Dusty West Texas desert ten minutes after launch.
Related: New Shepherd: Rocket for Space Tourism
During flight, the capsule created the “Moon Gravity Force.” This is the first of the new Shepherd mission. I did so by spinning about 11 times per minute for about 2 minutes. This was achieved by the capsule firing a reaction-controlled thruster.
This twist was implemented to provide 30 research payloads for the mission, of which 29 tested “Moon-related technology.”
These technologies can be grouped into six major categories. The company wrote:
According to Blue Origin, more than half of the NS-29 payload was supported by NASA’s Flight Chance Program. Data on the lunar environment is important to space agencies, and space agencies are working to establish a permanent human presence on and around them through its Artemis program.
“We look forward to providing Lunar-G capabilities online. We would like to thank NASA for their support. This is a whole new way to bring lunar gravity to NASA and other lunar technology providers. It accelerates research and technology preparation at a much lower cost. Furthermore, this new Shepherd function can be adapted to closely reflect the gravity environment of Mars and other solar systems in the future,” says Blue Origin. CEO Dave Limp said in a January 24th X post.
One of the today’s NASA experiments known as the electrostatic dust trofting project investigated “how moondust is electrically charged and lifted when exposed to ultraviolet rays.” “Insights from this research will help future moon missions address the issue of dust.”
Another, called the Lunar-G Combustion Survey, studied “how materials ignite the lunar gravity compared to the materials on Earth.” “The findings will help NASA and its partners create safer living and working habitats for the people of the moon.”
For more information about the NS-29 Science and Technology payload, please see here and here.
The New Shepherd is named after Alan Shepherd, the first American to reach the space. (Blue Origin’s big new Glenn Orbital Rocket, first launched last month, was named after John Glenn, the first American to reach Earth orbit.)
New Shepherd made his debut on an uncrowd flight in April 2015. The vehicle’s first crew occurred on July 20, 2021, on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Jeff Bezos took part in that groundbreaking NS-16 flight, along with his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Damen.
Nine of New Shepherd’s 29 flights so far have embraced people. The vehicle’s latest space tourism mission lofted Emily Kandreli and five other people on November 22nd.
