BackJeff Bezos' Blue Origin to launch New Shepard spacecraft today. Check details
Blue Origin's New Shephard, NS-17, will launch with the second flight of NASA's lunar landing technology demonstration on board todayNew Shepard is a 60-foot-tall and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo that cannot be piloted from inside the spacecraft
PremiumJeff Bezos space company Blue Origin would be launching its New Shephard (NS-17) spacecraft on Thursday.
The NS-17 will launch with the second flight of NASA's lunar landing technology demonstration on board today.
The NS-17 mission is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site at 7:05 pm (IST).
Blue Origin, dedicated the launch to flying scientific and research payloads and said that it will be the fourth flight for the New Shephard programme this year.
"This will be the 4th flight for the New Shepard program this year and the 8th flight for this particular vehicle, which is dedicated to flying scientific and research payloads to space and back," Blue Origin said in a statement.
The NS-17 won't carry any people, but the capsule will contain 18 commercial payloads, 11 of which are NASA-sponsored, as well as thousands of postcards submitted by kids via Blue Origin's nonprofit Club for the Future.
New Shepard is a 60-foot-tall and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo that cannot be piloted from inside the spacecraft.
The capsule's exterior comprises NASA's Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration experiment, designed to help spacecraft land more accurately on the moon and other cosmic bodies. The New Shepard was first flown in October 2020.
Moreover, the NS-17 will feature an art installation — Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo's "Suborbital Tryptych." The artwork is part of Uplift Aerospace’s Uplift Art Program, whose purpose is to inspire new ideas and generate dialouge by making space accessible and connected to the human experience.
On July 20, Jeff Bezos blasted off on the first flight of his space travel company with a hand-picked group; his younger brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands, and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas — the youngest and oldest to ever hurtle off the planet.
The Blue Origin rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a date chosen by Bezos for its historical significance.
Blue Origin has one main competitor in the suborbital space tourism business — Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic conducted its first fully crewed suborbital mission in July, this year.
Virgin Galactic is selling seats for $450,000 apiece. Blue Origin has not yet announced how much a ride on New Shepard costs.
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