An uncrewed flight test for Blue Origin’s upcoming New Shepard spaceship, which will eventually transport humans on suborbital journeys far above Earth, was successfully launched and landed Wednesday morning.
In order to “troubleshoot a vehicle issue,” Blue Origin, the private space exploration business of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, canceled the liftoff launch window that was initially set to open on October 7. On October 13, a second launch attempt was likewise canceled due to a GPS problem.
The launch marked the debut of Blue Origin’s NS-27, which is the second New Shepard vehicle designed for passengers. Although there were no people on board during the demonstration, Blue Origin has flown a crew on its first New Shepard spacecraft on eight of its 26 missions to date.
The aircraft used for the 27th flight of the New Shepard had “expanded flight capacity to better meet growing customer demand,” according to Blue Origin. The spacecraft is made up of a crew capsule called RSS Kármán Line, which is named after the 62-mile-high internationally acknowledged outer space barrier, and a first stage called Booster 5.
The vehicle carried 12 payloads, primarily for research, therefore the launch was much more than just a test flight.
Here’s how to watch the current launch again:
At what time did Blue Origin launch?
Launch Site One, located in Culberson County more than 140 miles east of El Paso, is where the rocket-and-capsule New Shepard spaceship took off. The facilities are located in rural West Texas on a private ranch.
After a brief delay, the launch took place around 11:25 a.m. EST.
According to the Washington-state-based corporation, new Shepard missions, which use a completely reusable suborbital rocket system, run 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. There are no pilots on board because the spacecraft is autonomous.
After separating within four minutes of takeoff on Wednesday, the booster successfully landed back at the launch site, utilizing its fins to slow and control its descent and its engines to power it. In the meantime, the capsule kept rising until, after roughly ten minutes, it landed via parachute.
How to observe the launch of the New Shepard
About ten minutes before launch, Blue Origin started a live webcast on BlueOrigin.com/live.
Information on the New Shepard from Blue Origin
The launch coincides with the ongoing, intense commercial space competition between billionaire-owned businesses, which includes rivals like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, founded by Richard Branson and Elon Musk, in addition to Blue Origin.
The last Blue Origin mission before Wednesday was in August, after flights resumed in May after an almost two-year break. As previously reported by the El Paso Times, a division of the USA TODAY Network, the rocket, which transports people and cargo on brief journeys to the edge of space, has been grounded since fall 2022 after a mission failed in Texas approximately one minute after liftoff, causing the rocket’s capsule containing NASA experiments to eject mid-flight.
Prior to Bezos riding atop the rocket as part of NS-16 on the first crewed mission in 2021, the New Shepard flew 15 times without a crew starting in 2012.
The crew capsule detaches from the rocket during the approximately 11-minute excursions, giving up to six passengers a brief period of weightlessness and a perspective of the curvature of the Earth.
At any time, the capsule can detach from the rocket and safely land by parachute. Meanwhile, the rocket returns to Culberson County, Texas, and lands on a pad.