{"id":17403,"date":"2022-03-28T18:40:44","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T10:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/all-systems-go-for-blue-origins-spacefliers-but-not-for-weather-at-texas-launch-site\/"},"modified":"2022-03-28T18:40:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T10:40:44","slug":"all-systems-go-for-blue-origins-spacefliers-but-not-for-weather-at-texas-launch-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/all-systems-go-for-blue-origins-spacefliers-but-not-for-weather-at-texas-launch-site\/","title":{"rendered":"All systems go for Blue Origin\u2019s spacefliers \u2014 but not for weather at Texas launch site"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/220328-blueorigin2-630x630.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-686427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/220328-blueorigin2-630x630.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/220328-blueorigin2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/220328-blueorigin2-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/220328-blueorigin2-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/220328-blueorigin2.jpg 1210w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>Trainer Sarah Knights and spacefliers-to-be look at New Shepard\u2019s crew capsule. (Blue Origin via Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has rescheduled its next crewed suborbital space mission for Thursday, due to concerns about the weather for Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>In a mission update, Blue Origin said \u201cforecasted high winds during launch and recovery\u201d forced a postponement of the liftoff from the company\u2019s Launch Site One in West Texas. The National Weather Service said winds could reach sustained levels of 35 to 45 mph on Tuesday, with gusts up to 60 mph.<\/p>\n<p>Six spacefliers \u2014 including the first married couple to go into space together in 30 years \u2014 have signed on for Blue Origin\u2019s fourth crewed suborbital flight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe team has completed Flight Readiness Review and confirmed the vehicle has met all the mission requirement for flight,\u201d Blue Origin said. \u201cAstronauts are completing their training, and weather remains as the only gating factor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin will begin streaming-video coverage of the countdown and launch at 7:20 a.m. CT (5:20 a.m. PT) on Thursday. Launch updates will be passed along via Blue Origin\u2019s Twitter account.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview aired on \u201cCBS News Mornings,\u201d SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle said that she and her husband, Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle, were \u201creally excited to be here.\u201d<\/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 crew discusses trip of a lifetime ahead of launch\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pjdbVGKHCu8?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>\u201cWe want to inspire kids on STEAM+ education, particularly young girls, because they\u2019re the next generation of space travelers,\u201d she said. One of the activities that she and her crew members took on was filling out postcards that they\u201dll carry aboard their New Shepard spaceship for the Club for the Future, Blue Origin\u2019s educational nonprofit group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d comedian Pete Davidson was originally scheduled to go on this week\u2019s flight, but he had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced on the crew by New Shepard\u2019s chief architect, Gary Lai.<\/p>\n<p>Lai told CBS that he\u2019s long dreamed of flying on the spaceship he helped design.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHundreds of people \u2014 dedicated, brilliant people \u2014 have worked on this program, and I\u2019m honored to be the one chosen to do it,\u201d Lai said. \u201cBut I hope that all of them someday get this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The other crew members are George Nield, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who was involved in regulating commercial spaceflight; Jim Kitchen, a teacher and entrepreneur from North Carolina; and Marty Allen, an angel investor and former CEO of Party America.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin\u2019s reusable New Shepard craft is designed to carry the sextet beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles) in altitude for a few minutes of weightlessness and an astronaut\u2019s-eye view of the Earth below. <\/p>\n<p>Bezos flew on the first crewed mission last July. Star Trek captain William Shatner was part of the crew for the second flight in October, and Laura Shepard Churchley \u2014 the eldest daughter of pioneer NASA astronaut Alan Shepard \u2014 headlined the crew for the third flight last December. This is Blue Origin\u2019s first flight in 2022, and the company says it plans to pick up the pace in the months ahead.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Budget looks to NASA\u2019s future<\/h2>\n<p>The New Shepard suborbital space effort is just one of Blue Origin\u2019s projects. The company is also leading the Orbital Reef consortium in a campaign to design a commercial space station for Earth orbit, and is vying to build a lunar lander for use in NASA\u2019s Artemis moon program.<\/p>\n<p>Both of those programs were addressed today in the Biden administration\u2019s budget proposal for fiscal year 2023. The $25.973 billion sought for NASA includes $224 million for commercial space station development, and $1.486 billion for human landing systems.<\/p>\n<p>Jim Free, NASA\u2019s associate administrator for exploration systems development, said the $1.486 billion would support work on SpaceX\u2019s lunar Starship variant as well as on a second commercial lunar lander, which may or may not turn out to be the one proposed by Blue Origin and its industry partners. <\/p>\n<p>Free declined to say how much would be set aside for the second commercial team, on the grounds that providing a figure would tip NASA\u2019s hand too much during the procurement process. <\/p>\n<p>The Artemis program\u2019s first moon landing is currently scheduled for 2025, using SpaceX\u2019s Starship. NASA expects the second crewed mission to the lunar surface to take place in the 2027-2028 time frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trainer Sarah Knights and spacefliers-to-be look at New Shepard\u2019s crew capsule. (Blue Origin via Instagram) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has rescheduled its next crewed suborbital space mission for Thursday, due to concerns about the weather for Tuesday and Wednesday. In a mission update, Blue Origin said \u201cforecasted high winds during launch [&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":[509,291,1250,493,4402],"class_list":["post-17403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-new-shepard","tag-space-tourism","tag-suborbital-spaceflight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17403"}],"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=17403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}