{"id":17143,"date":"2025-02-04T19:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T11:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/blue-origin-puts-a-lunar-spin-on-suborbital-research-flight-of-new-shepard-rocket-ship\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T19:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T11:42:10","slug":"blue-origin-puts-a-lunar-spin-on-suborbital-research-flight-of-new-shepard-rocket-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/blue-origin-puts-a-lunar-spin-on-suborbital-research-flight-of-new-shepard-rocket-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin puts a lunar spin on suborbital research flight of New Shepard rocket ship"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"433\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250204-newshepard-630x433.jpg\" alt=\"Descent of Blue Origin New Shepard booster\" class=\"wp-image-857797\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250204-newshepard-630x433.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250204-newshepard-768x528.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250204-newshepard.jpg 1201w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Blue Origin\u2019s reusable New Shepard booster descends to a landing in Texas. (Blue Origin via YouTube) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For the first time, Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has put its New Shepard suborbital rocket ship through a couple of minutes\u2019 worth of moon-level gravity.<\/p>\n<p>The uncrewed mission, known as NS-29, sent 30 research payloads on a 10-minute trip from Blue Origin\u2019s Launch Site One in West Texas. For this trip, the crew capsule was spun up to 11 revolutions per minute, as opposed to the typical half-revolution per minute. The resulting centrifugal force was equivalent to one-sixth of Earth\u2019s gravity, which is what would be felt on the moon.<\/p>\n<p>The point of the exercise was to test how the payloads performed during the conditions they would face during future lunar missions \u2014 for example, how well they could process moon dirt to extract oxygen and other resources, or how well they could work to manufacture solar cells for Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Alchemist project.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin had to call off an initial launch attempt last week due to a glitch in the avionics system, but the balky equipment was replaced and checked out in advance of today\u2019s launch. Liftoff came at 10 a.m. CT (8 a.m. PT). New Shepard\u2019s hydrogen-powered booster sent the capsule up to a height of 64.6 miles (104 kilometers), just above the 100-kilometer Karman Line that marks the internationally accepted boundary of outer space.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Blue Origin NS-29 New Shepard launch and landing\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_8AUjZGv9bE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>After stage separation, launch commentator Alice Watts reported that the capsule achieved \u201cfull lunar-G roll.\u201d Then the booster landed itself on a pad not far from where it was launched, while the capsule descended to a parachute-aided landing in the Texas scrublands. One of the three parachutes didn\u2019t open as quickly as planned, but Blue Origin said that had no effect on the landing sequence.<\/p>\n<p>The payloads will be taken from the capsule and checked to see how they performed under lunar conditions. <\/p>\n<p>Previously, suborbital payloads could get only a few seconds\u2019 worth of moon gravity during parabolic airplane flights. \u201cBetween that and actually going to the moon sits New Shepard,\u201d launch commentator Joel Eby explained during today\u2019s webcast. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of filling that sweet spot in the middle, showing that these technologies can be tested at a lower cost, with immediate results and over minutes of data collected, not just a few seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More than half of the payloads were supported through NASA\u2019s Flight Opportunities program. Four payloads were built by Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin subsidiary, and tested technologies focusing on excavating and processing lunar soil. Another payload, created by Kennedy Space Center and its research partners, was designed to study how moon dust gets electrically charged and lifted up when exposed to ultraviolet light.<\/p>\n<p>The results from the experiments will be factored into future lunar missions, including NASA\u2019s Artemis campaign to send astronauts to the lunar surface by as early as 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Phil Joyce, Blue Origin\u2019s senior vice president for the New Shepard program, hailed today\u2019s milestone in a mission recap. \u201cNew Shepard\u2019s ability to provide a lunar gravity environment is an extremely unique and valuable capability as researchers set their sights on a return to the moon,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cThis enables researchers to test lunar technologies at a fraction of the cost, rapidly iterate, and test again in a significantly compressed time frame.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s mission also carried thousands of postcards to space and back on behalf of the Club for the Future, Blue Origin\u2019s educational foundation. The cards will be returned to the students who sent them in for a suborbital ride.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin\u2019s reusable New Shepard boosters and capsules are built at the company\u2019s headquarters in Kent, Wash. In addition to the Kent HQ and the Texas spaceport, Blue Origin has a rocket factory and launch pad in Florida (where its orbital-class New Glenn rocket was launched for the first time last month) and a rocket engine factory in Alabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blue Origin\u2019s reusable New Shepard booster descends to a landing in Texas. (Blue Origin via YouTube) For the first time, Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has put its New Shepard suborbital rocket ship through a couple of minutes\u2019 worth of moon-level gravity. The uncrewed mission, known as NS-29, sent 30 research payloads on a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,1250,4402],"class_list":["post-17143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-new-shepard","tag-suborbital-spaceflight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}