The Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference is being held in Colorado through Wednesday. I wasn’t able to attend this year, but the following folks are there tweeting away:
- Jeff Foust @jeff_foust
- Rand Simberg @Rand_Simberg
- Colorado Space News @CO_Space_News
Below is an update on Blue Origin’s New Shepard program based on their tweets.
Jeff Ashby
Chief of Mission Assurance
Blue Origin
- Flawless New Shepard flight test last week
- First commercial flight under a launch license issued by FAA — allows Blue Origin to collect revenues (unlike previous experimental permit)
- New vehicle incorporates lessons learned from earlier flight test program that finished in October 2016
- Roughly one year away from New Shepard human flight tests, 18-24 months from flights with human-tended payloads
- Waiting until the commercial service version of the system is flying to sell tickets for New Shepard flights
- Capsule has full environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) and triple redundancy as well as pusher escape system
- New Shepard flights will have about three minutes of microgravity
- 5 G’s peak experienced during reentry
- Proprietary landing system provides a soft landing for capsule and its occupants and experiments
- One day of training required that will include mission simulation and emergency egress instruction
- Centrifuge training at NASTAR will not required for New Shepard flights
- Flight will be conducted early in morning due to calmer winds at that time
- Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Al Worden have expressed interest in flying
- System designed to be rapidly reusable
- Takes about two weeks to turn around New Shepard for relaunch
- Goal is to reduce turnaround to one week with 20 operational personnel
- Blue Origin landed a booster from space first (before SpaceX)
- Watching a rocket land is even cooler than watching them launch
- Shift from “used” rockets to “flight proven” has been a good thing
- New Glenn orbital rocket will have 7-meter payload to accommodate larger payloads