Blue Origin Gets a Second Capsule Certified for Space Tourism Flights

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Key Takeaways

  • The new model New Shepard carried out a successful certification mission
  • On this occasion, the flight operated at a slightly lower-than-usual altitude of 63.6 miles.
  • Blue Origin is now one step closer to its space tourism aspirations.

Blue Origin conducted a successful uncrewed certification mission for its new model New Shepard suborbital vehicle and capsule on Wednesday (October 23rd).

It was the first flight for the second edition of the spaceship, with the company describing the mission as “nominal and on target” despite operating at a slightly lower altitude than on previous occasions.

The progress for Blue Origin means that Jeff Bezos’ space firm can move forward in its ambitions to effectively double the number of tourists it can carry to suborbital space and back, at a faster pace.

The RSS Karman Line capsule is named after the imaginary boundary which is considered to be the frontier of space at 100km (62mi) of altitude. On Wednesday morning at 8:27AM Pacific, it took to the skies from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site.

That was the 27th flight of a New Shepard capsule since 2015, but all the preceding missions used the RSS First Step with 43 people taken to the edge of space since crewed missions commenced three years ago.

RSS Karman Benefited From Additional Payload Capacity

RSS Karman Line prevailed after two previous failed attempts on October 7 and 13 due to technical issues, with the latter also impacted by a GPS issue.

The booster – which doesn’t get named as there can be several carried – separated from the capsule around four minutes after lift-off, while the capsule descended back to Earth under a parachute after another six minutes.

It was later confirmed the capsuled reached 63.6 miles, just under the usual range of 65.2mi to 66.5mi for New Shepard missions.

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new booster and a new crew capsule,” Blue Origin’s Maggie McNeece exclaimed during a launch livestream.

With Karman Line, the company made use of fresh upgrades to improve performance, including additional payload capacity on the booster. This one carried five payloads with a further seven accommodated inside the capsule.