Blue Origin, on Wednesday, finally launched its brand new human-rated spacecraft and it ended in success. The New Shepard (NS) rocket lifted off at 8:57 pm IST for the NS-27 mission from the company’s launch site in Texas with the debutant crew capsule.
At 9:04 pm, the NS Booster made a flawless touchdown at the launch pad followed by the NS capsule which reached the ground three minutes later.
Liftoff 🚀#NS27 pic.twitter.com/sMXCm0iUEm
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 23, 2024
The mission was originally targeted for launch on October 7 but it faced multiple delays due to technical problems. With NS-27’s success, the Jeff Bezos-owned company now has two spacecrafts to take passengers to space.
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Booster touchdown. #NS27 pic.twitter.com/f3xcljjrVR
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 23, 2024
“We look forward to welcoming crew onboard RSS Kármán Line soon and offering the New Shepard flight experience to people across the world from all backgrounds,” Phil Joyce, SVP, New Shepard said in a statement.
The NS booster carried five payloads whereas seven payloads were inside the crew capsule for testing.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said that two of the payloads – NS Navi and lidar – were the most important ones as they will be used for Moon missions as part of the company’s Lunar Permanence Program.
This morning’s #NewShepard #NS27 flight not only debuted our second human-rated vehicle for the program but also sent 12 payloads to space and back. Five of our Blue programs were involved with this mission, and I wanted to highlight two of them here—NS Navi and lidar for our… pic.twitter.com/7sToUJDhE3
— Dave Limp (@davill) October 23, 2024
“NS Navi is our new launch vehicle navigator. It flew for the first time on the crew capsule as the primary navigation system and on the booster for performance evaluation. The system is scalable architecture to support both New Shepard and New Glenn,” Limp posted on X.
“We also tested two different lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors for our Lunar Permanence program. We are validating their performance in the range and speed envelope in a way that is similar to what our MK1 lunar landing trajectory will be. This testing will help ensure that the onboard navigation system can precisely and softly land on the lunar surface,” he further said.
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(Image: X/@DavidLimp)
