Fwd: Blue Origin Successfully Flies New Shepard Suborbital Vehicle

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 24, 2015 at 2:28:11 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Blue Origin Successfully Flies New Shepard Suborbital Vehicle

 

 

 

Nov 24, 2015

Blue Origin Makes Historic Rocket Landing

Van Horn, Texas - November 24, 2015 - Blue Origin today announced that its New Shepard space vehicle successfully flew to space, reaching its planned test altitude of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) before executing a historic landing back at the launch site in West Texas. To receive updates on Blue Origin's continuing progress and early access to ticketing information, sign up at www.blueorigin.com/interested.

"Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts—a used rocket," said Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin. "Blue Origin's reusable New Shepard space vehicle flew a flawless mission—soaring to 329,839 feet and then returning through 119-mph high-altitude crosswinds to make a gentle, controlled landing just four and a half feet from the center of the pad. Full reuse is a game changer, and we can't wait to fuel up and fly again."

High resolution video and images capturing the historic mission are available for viewing and embedding in stories at www.blueorigin.com/gallery.

Named in honor of the first American in space, Alan Shepard, the New Shepard vertical takeoff and vertical landing vehicle will carry six astronauts to altitudes beyond 100 kilometers, the internationally-recognized boundary of space. Blue Origin astronauts will experience the thrill of launch atop a rocket, the freedom of weightlessness, and views through the largest windows to ever fly in space. An animation of the Blue Origin astronaut experience can be found at www.blueorigin.com/astronaut-experience. Astronaut flights will begin following completion of a methodical flight test program.

Details on the Reusable New Shepard Space Vehicle

The New Shepard space vehicle is fully reusable and operated from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site. The vehicle is comprised of two elements—a crew capsule in which the astronauts ride and a rocket booster powered by a single American-made BE-3 liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen engine. At liftoff, the BE-3 delivers 110,000 pounds of thrust. During ascent, astronauts experience 3x the force of gravity as the spacecraft accelerates through the atmosphere.

Following powered flight, the crew capsule separates from the booster and coasts into space, providing several minutes of weightlessness. As the crew capsule descends, it reenters the atmosphere with astronauts experiencing about 5x the force of gravity before deploying three main parachutes for landing. Meanwhile, the booster descends under guided flight to the landing pad. Just prior to landing, the booster re-ignites its BE-3 engine which slows the vehicle to 4.4 mph for a gentle, powered vertical landing, enabling vehicle reuse.

Flight Details

• Launched at 11:21 a.m. Central Time, November 23, 2015
• Apogee of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) for the crew capsule
• Mach 3.72
• Re-ignition of rocket booster at 4,896 feet above ground level
• Controlled vertical landing of the booster at 4.4 mph
• Deployment of crew capsule drogue parachutes at 20,045 feet above ground level
• Landing of the crew capsule under parachutes at 11:32 a.m. Central Time
• Additional remarks from Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos are available on the Blue Origin blog at www.blueorigin.com/news/blog/historic-rocket-landing

About Blue Origin

Blue Origin, LLC (Blue Origin) is a private company developing vehicles and technologies to enable commercial human space transportation. Blue Origin has a long-term vision of greatly increasing the number of people that fly into space so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. For more information and a list of job openings, please visit us at www.blueorigin.com.

View more mission images here

© 2015 Blue Origin All rights reserved.

 

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Blue Origin Successfully Flies New Shepard Suborbital Vehicle

by Jeff Foust — November 24, 2015

New Shepard's propulsion module stands on the pad after landing at the end of a Nov. 23 suborbital test flight. Credit: Blue Origin

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin announced Nov. 24 that it launched its New Shepard suborbital vehicle on a second test flight, flying to the edge of space and successfully landing both sections of the vehicle.

New Shepard launched from the company's West Texas test site at 12:21 p.m. Eastern time Nov. 23, reaching a peak altitude of 100.5 kilometers and top speed of Mach 3.72. The vehicle's unoccupied crew capsule separated and parachuted to a landing, while its propulsion module made a powered vertical landing.

The test was similar to one flown in April, where the vehicle reached a peak altitude of more than 93 kilometers. On that earlier test, however, a hydraulic problem with the propulsion module prevented it from making a controlled landing.

"This flight validates our vehicle architecture and design," Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the flight. That includes fins and drag brakes that steer and slow down the propulsion module before its main engine reignites for the final landing sequence.

Both modules of New Shepard are designed to be reused. "Full reuse is a game changer, and we can't wait to fuel up and fly again," Bezos said in the statement. The company did not states when they next plan to fly the vehicle.

The company did not announce the test flight in advance, and did not issue a statement about it until 18 hours after it took place. However, in recent weeks company officials have stated that they planned to conduct a test flight of New Shepard before the end of the year.

The successful flight keeps Blue Origin on track to begin commercial flights of research payloads by the middle of 2016. The vehicle is also designed to carry people, but the company has not disclosed a timetable for crewed flights.

 © 2015 SpaceNews, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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