Blue Origin is preparing to send a crew of commercial astronauts into suborbital space, finally resuming its space tourism program with New Shepard nearly two years after its launch.
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Blue Origin said the New Shepard rocket is scheduled to lift off from Launch Site 1 in West Texas during a launch window beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET on Sunday. The NS-25 mission will carry six crew members, including 90-year-old Ed Dwight, who was selected in 1961 as the first black astronaut candidate but never went to space. The launch will be broadcast live on Blue Origin’s website.
Jeff Bezos’ space company had suspended its suborbital tourism program after the New Shepard rocket’s launch failure. In September 2022, an unmanned New Shepard flight ended in flames about a minute after takeoff.
The rocket’s booster exploded mid-flight, and the capsule abandoned ship while flying 29,000 feet (8,840 meters) above the ground at about 700 miles per hour (1,130 kilometers per hour). At the time, New His Shepard carried his 36 payloads, more than half of which belonged to his NASA.
In light of New Shepard’s explosive takeoff, the Federal Aviation Administration shut down the rocket and began an investigation into the flight failure. A year later, the FAA handed Blue Origin a list of 21 corrective actions to take before the rocket was deemed suitable for flight.
Blue Origin identified a “thermal structural defect in the engine nozzle” as the cause of the rocket’s launch failure. The company said the increased temperatures caused the booster’s engine nozzles to overheat, causing “thermal damage and heat streaks.”
The launch failure was the first for a Blue Origin rocket. The rocket rebounded with an unmanned flight launch in December 2023. On its 13th cargo mission, NS-24 carried 33 research payloads (not including humans), more than half of which were “developed and flown with support from NASA,” the company said. I have written. This payload mission paved the way for the rocket to return to manned flight.
NS-25 will be on its seventh manned flight, transporting passengers to sub-orbital heights. New Shepard’s final space tourism mission took place in August 2022 and carried a crew of six commercial astronauts, including the first person from Egypt to fly into space.
The first seat of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket was sold for $28 million through a global auction in 2021. Ticket prices for the company’s space tourism vehicles have not been made public, but a seat on New Shepard reportedly costs about $28 million. 1.25 million dollars.
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