).Published: Saturday, May 18, 2020
Blue Origin’s New Shepard will fly into space on December 11, 2020 near Van Horn in Texas, carrying Good Morning America coanchor Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley – daughter of Alan Shepard. They are aboard mission NS-19. This is the third human spaceflight by the company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Blue Origin will launch its first private space tourism mission in almost two years on May 19, and you can watch the live stream online.
The mission will be known as NS-25 because it is the 25th suborbital launch for Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle. Six people are involved: Ed Dwight is the first Black candidate for the U.S. astronaut program; Mason Angel, a venture capitalist; Sylvain Chron, founder of the French craft brewery Brasserie Mont Blanc, entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess, retired accountant Carol Schaller, and pilot Gopi Thotakura. Here you can find out more about them.
The launch window opens for NS-25 at 9:30 a.m. ET (1330 GMT, or 8:30 a.m. in West Texas where the launch is taking place). Space.com’s live webcast of Blue Origin will be available on this page as well as our homepage. The stream is set to start 40 minutes prior to the launch window opening.
Related: Blue Origin is launching Ed Dwight as the first Black astronaut candidate to space aboard its next New Shepard launch.
The last Blue Origin crewed flight, NS-22 occurred in August 2022. A month later, during a research mission without crew, New Shepard experienced an anomaly. The vehicle’s capsule was returned safely by parachutes, even though the first-stage booster had been destroyed.
Engineers examined the problem and fixed it. The anomaly was a “thermostructural failure” in the nozzle of the rocket’s BE-3PM engine. Suborbital flight resumed with the NS-24 unmanned mission in December 2023.
New Shepard can be reused. The rocket touches down vertically soon after launch, while the capsule with passengers descends under parachutes approximately 11 minutes after launch.
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The passengers will experience weightlessness for a few moments and see the Earth in stark contrast to the blackness of outer space. New Shepard flight prices have not yet been announced, but Virgin Galactic seats start at $450,000 each.
NS-25 is the seventh New Shepard flight with crew. The other 18 missions of the vehicle were robotic research.
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Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D. is a staff reporter in the spaceflight channels since 2022. She covers diversity, education, and gaming. She worked as a contributing writer at Space.com before becoming a full-time staff member. Elizabeth’s reporting has included multiple exclusives at the White House, Office of the Vice President of the United States and a conversation with aspiring astronaut (and NSYNC Bassist) Lance Bass. She also spoke with the International Space Station several times, witnessed five human spaceflights on two continents and participated in a simulated Mars Mission. Her latest book, “Why Am I Taller? Her latest book, “Why Am I Taller? Elizabeth has a Ph.D. in Physics and a M.Sc. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies, from the University of North Dakota. She also has a Bachelor of History at Athabasca University. Elizabeth has been a post-secondary science and communications instructor at various institutions since 2015. She also developed and taught an astronomy class at Canada’s Algonquin College, which included Indigenous content. Elizabeth became interested in space in 1996 after watching the film Apollo 13. She still hopes to become an astronaut one day. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace
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Source: Space.com