Blue Origin will launch six tourists into space after a nearly two-year hiatus

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Blue Origin’s tourist rocket is ready to launch passengers to the edge of space for the first time in nearly two years, ending a hiatus caused by a failed unmanned test flight.

The New Shepard rocket and capsule are scheduled to lift off during a window that opens at 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) from Blue Origin’s facilities on a private ranch in West Texas. A Live broadcast The mission, called NS-25, will begin at around 7:50 a.m. CT (8:50 a.m. ET) on the website of the company founded by Jeff Bezos.

The NS-25, Blue Origin’s seventh manned flight to date, will carry six customers aboard the capsule: venture capitalist Mason Angel; Sylvain Chiron, founder of French craft brewery Brasserie Mont-Blanc; software engineer and entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess; retired accountant Carol Schaller; aviator Gopi Thotakura; and Ed Dwight, a retired U.S. Air Force captain selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to be the nation’s first black astronaut candidate.

Despite completing training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School and receiving an Air Force recommendation, Dwight ended up not being part of the NASA Astronaut Corps. He became a businessman and a sculptor; a new National Geographic documentary about black astronauts, “The space race,” highlights Dwight’s pioneering story.

“I had no intention of being an astronaut. That was the last thing on my bucket list,” Dwight said in the documentary. “But as soon as I received the challenge, everything changed.”

Dwight will complete this challenge and reach the edge of space at age 90, becoming the oldest person to venture to such heights, according to a Blue Origin spokesperson.

During the mission, the crew will fly at more than three times the speed of sound, or more than 2,000 miles per hour. The rocket will bounce the capsule past the Kármán line, an area 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth’s surface that is widely recognized as the altitude at which outer space begins – but there are many gray area.

And at the height of the flight, passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and stunning views of Earth through the cabin windows.

The launch follows the success of a scientific mission unscrewed in December – the New Shepard program’s first flight since the accident more than a year earlier.

The failure of New Shepard in 2022

A New Shepard rocket and spacecraft were scheduled to launch a batch of scientific instruments on September 12, 2022. But a minute into the flight, the rocket withstood Max Q – an aerospace term that refers to a moment of maximum stress at a vehicle. It occurs when the rocket is at a relatively low altitude – where the atmosphere is still quite thick – but the spacecraft is moving at high speed, creating a moment of intense pressure on the vehicle.

At that time, the rocket appeared to emit a huge burst of flames. The New Shepard capsule, which sits atop the rocket, then initiated its launch abort system – turning on a small engine to safely move away from the malfunctioning rocket. This system worked as planned, parachuting the capsule to a safe landing.

Blue Origin later revealed that the cause of the failure was a problem with the engine nozzle, a large cone that directs burning exhaust toward the bottom of the rocket. The onboard computers accurately detected the fault and shut down the engine, according to the company.

No injuries were reported on the ground, and Blue Origin said the science payloads and capsule could fly again.

But the rocket, left without a working engine, fell back to the ground and was destroyed. Typically, after New Shepard launches, the rocket guides itself back to a safe vertical landing so it can fly again.

During a December interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Bezos said the escape system that launched the capsule to safety is the most difficult piece of engineering in the entire rocket — but “it’s the reason I feel comfortable letting anyone go on the New Shepard.”

“The (rocket) booster is as safe and reliable as we can make it,” Bezos added. “The power density is so enormous that it is impossible to be sure that nothing will go wrong. … Therefore, the only way to improve safety is to have an escape system.

“In my opinion, a touring vehicle has to be designed… to be as safe as possible,” he said. “You can’t make it perfectly safe. It’s impossible.”

Rocket repair and return to service

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches and is responsible for ensuring public safety, oversaw an investigation into the failure. The probe revealed that the engine’s nozzle failed because it experienced higher temperatures than anticipated by the company.

To resolve the issue, Blue Origin said it implemented “design changes to the combustion chamber” – the area of ​​the engine where fuel explosively mixes with oxidizer – and adjusted “operational parameters,” or the data the company uses to model safe flights.

“Additional changes to the nozzle design have improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads,” the company said in a March 2023 report. declaration.

The FAA formally concluded its accident investigation on September 27, 2023, outlining 21 “corrective actions” that Blue Origin needed to implement before returning to flight. The agency did not reveal details about what these actions were, watching the report “contains proprietary data and U.S. export controls information and is not available for public release.

The changes and the successful flight of New Shephard in December encouraged the company to restart its trips to space for those seeking thrills.

Before the September 2022 failure, New Shepard rockets flew 22 consecutive successful missions – including six with passengers on board. Bezos flew aboard the rocket in 2021. Other notable space tourists previously transported by the vehicle include the “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and host of “Good Morning America” Michael Strahan.

CNN’s Madeline Holcombe contributed to this report.

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