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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 20 2021, @06:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the flight-has-it-ups-and-downs dept.

[2021-07-20 14:41:25 UTC] UPDATE: Flight had a short hold at (IIRC) T-15:00 then proceeded to have a safe ignition, liftoff, flight, and separation. Booster landed successfully under powered descent. A few minutes later the capsule coasted to apogee (maximum altitude), began its descent, deployed parachutes, and landed nominally. All crew disembarked safely. Congratulations to all involved!]

According to Wikipedia, the capsule reached apogee of 105.671 km (65.6612 mi). On board were the oldest (Wally Funk, 82) and youngest (Oliver Daemen, 18) people to ever reach space. Also on board were Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos.

Original story follows, unchanged.


Blue Origin set for historic first human flight of its New Shepard system:

Officials with the rocket company Blue Origin said they remain on track for their first human spaceflight on Tuesday, which will carry founder Jeff Bezos and three other passengers on a suborbital hop 100 km above West Texas.

Steve Lanias, the lead flight director for the mission, said during a call with reporters that engineers completed a "Flight Readiness Review" for the launch over the weekend and found the New Shepard rocket and capsule to be in perfect condition. Weather, too, looks reasonable with any early morning storms expected to pass before the anticipated liftoff time of 8 am CT (13:00 UTC).

Bezos and the other three passengers—his brother, Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and a paying customer from the Netherlands named Oliver Daemen—underwent about 14 hours of training this weekend across two days. Their flight will be entirely autonomous. After launch the capsule will separate from the rocket, and the passengers will have about three minutes of weightlessness before they must strap back into their seats for the return to Earth. Upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere the passengers will experience about 5 Gs as gravity exerts itself on the returning vehicle.

[...] For Tuesday's flight, the company will provide a webcast, which is expected to begin about 90 minutes before the anticipated liftoff time. So the webcast should go live at 6:30 am local time in Texas, or about 11:30 UTC.

The webcast is scheduled to be available on YouTube: New Shepard First Human Flight.

NB: Virgin Galactic's flight on 2021-05-11[*] reached an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) which is the altitude at which NASA issues pilot's wings. Many noted the flight failed to reach the Kármán line boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space which is defined to be 100 km (62 miles). New Shepard's flight is scheduled to reach the Kármán line.

[*] SoylentNews coverage of Virgin Galactic's flight.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @11:14PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @11:14PM (#1158494)

    ULA's future depends* on it but Blue Origin has never needed to turn a profit.

    *ULA should be able to retrofit Raptor engines in place of the BE-4s, but by the time things get bad enough to make that politically acceptable it will be far too late to save them.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 21 2021, @09:00PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 21 2021, @09:00PM (#1158907) Journal

    I tend to think that a rocket is designed around the engine. I don't think you just swap out BE-4 for Raptor.

    Furthermore, there is no reason SpaceX may want to sell Raptors to enable a major competitor. Engines are probably one of the most proprietary elements, eg, secret sauce.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.