Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin blasted off its New Shepard (NS-17) cargo mission into space for a 10-minute 15-second ride on Thursday. The spacecraft was launched from the company’s West Texas launch site.
“Capsule, touchdown! A wholly successful payload mission for New Shepard. A huge congrats to the entire Blue Origin team on another successful flight,” Blue Origin said in a Twitter post.
Prior to the launch, the company said that this will be the fourth flight for the New Shephard programme this year. “This will be the fourth flight for the New Shepard programme this year and the eighth flight for this particular vehicle, which is dedicated to flying scientific and research payloads to space and back,” the statement read.
The NS-17 that completed the space mission on Thursday didn’t carry any people, but the capsule contained as many as 18 commercial payloads – 11 of which are NASA-sponsored, along with thousands of postcards submitted by kids via Blue Origin’s nonprofit Club for the Future.
On July 20, Bezos had blasted off for an 11-minute ride on his company’s rocket along with his brother and two others. This was the first spacecraft mission of Blue Origin’s since its invention in 2000 with people onboard.
The New Shepard is a 60-foot-tall and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo that can’t be piloted from inside the spacecraft. The capsule constitutes NASA’s Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration experiment, designed to allow spacecraft to land more correctly on the moon and other cosmic bodies. The first New Shepard was flown in October last year.
The capsule’s exterior comprises NASA’s Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration experiment, designed to help spacecraft land more accurately on the moon and other cosmic bodies. The New Shepard was first flown in October 2020.
