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Blue original It carried out a successful uncrewed certification mission for its second ship, New Shepard, on Wednesday, as the company looks to double the number of tourists it can fly to suborbital space and back.
The RSS Kármán capsule is named after the imaginary boundary at 100 km altitude that separates the atmosphere from space; It was launched into suborbital space from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site at 8:27 a.m. PT. It was the 27th flight of the New Shepard launch vehicle since 2015. All of those missions used the same capsule, RSS First Step, which has carried 43 people to the edge of space since crewed missions began in 2021. (The boosters, of which there are several, don’t get names.)
“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new booster and it’s a new crew capsule,” Blue Origin’s Maggie McInnis said. During the live broadcast of the launch.
Blue Origin said the vehicle included some new upgrades to improve performance and reliability, in addition to improving payload locations on the booster. This booster carried five payloads for this mission, while seven additional payloads were placed inside the capsule. While Blue Origin has not released details about all the payloads, McNeece said all but one of the payloads were technology demonstrations developed internally. This included two different lidar sensors for the Moon Permanent program and a navigation system for both New Shepard and New Glenn, Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket, which could be launched before the end of the year.
The successful launch came after two attempts were canceled due to technical problems on October 7 and 13. The booster separated from the capsule about four minutes after liftoff, with the capsule sliding independently to Earth under a parachute about six minutes later.
Blue Origin said this new capsule will expand “flight capacity to better meet growing customer demand,” although it is unclear what launch cadence the company expects to achieve in the coming months.
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