New Shepard has undergone multiple iterations over the years, making 15 test launches to suborbital space as of mid-July 2021. Many of these flights have carried experiments for university researchers and other scientists, but none have yet been crewed. The rocket, meanwhile, comes down for a powered, vertical landing at its designated touchdown pad. The spacecraft will then re-enter the atmosphere for a safe landing on Earth, about 11 minutes after liftoff. Passengers will be weightless for about four minutes, and will be able to see the Earth's curvature from an altitude of about 307,000 feet (93,573 m). After main engine cutoff, the crew capsule will separate from the rocket.
Here's what space tourists can expect: New Shepard will lift off using the rocket's BE-3PM engine, which will burn for about two minutes and 45 seconds. Related: Space tourism, 20 years in the making, is finally ready for launch One of the income streams Blue Origin is pursuing for New Shepard - which is named after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard - is space tourism. This left Blue Origin reliant on finding other customers to eventually support its work. However, as the Commercial Crew program continued, NASA chose rival systems -SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner - to provide crewed flights to and from the International Space Station. "It was awesome to see a spacecraft NASA played a role in developing take flight." "The progress Blue Origin has made on its suborbital and orbital capabilities really is encouraging for the overall future of human spaceflight," NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Ed Mango said in a statement at the time. The system soared to 2,307 feet (703 m) before returning to Earth by parachute.īlue Origin’s pusher escape system rockets the Crew Capsule away from the launch pad, demonstrating a key safety system for both suborbital and orbital flights. October 2012 saw tests of the crew capsule escape system the company dubbed the event "a great day in Texas" on its website. The next "short hop" took place in November that year. He added that the company was already working on another development vehicle.
Blue origin spaceship update#
2, 2011, update to the company's website. Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard," Bezos wrote in a Sept. "A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle. The company's first major disclosed setback came in 2011, when a development vehicle failed at around 45,000 feet (13,700 meters) in altitude during a flight test. In January 2007, according to MSNBC, Blue Origin's website opened for business, featuring videos and photos from such milestones such as a November 2006 test flight.īlue Origin received two rounds of funding from NASA: $3.7 million in 2010 for the first round of the Commercial Crew Program, and $22 million for the second round in 2011. The corporate names were based on famous explorers.
Blue origin spaceship series#
Blue Origin was registered as a company in 2000 but didn't garner much public attention until 2006, when Bezos made a series of land purchases in Texas.Īccording to the Wall Street Journal, these purchases were made under names such as "James Cook L.P.," "Jolliet Holdings," "Coronado Ventures" and "Cabot Enterprises," which all traced back to the same address. Blue Origin is known in the space industry for not releasing much information about its flights and aspirations ahead of time, unlike companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.