If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin is scheduled to debut its new spacecraft on Monday (October 7).
Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company plans to launch an unmanned mission, NS-27, on Monday morning to send the New Shepard rocket-capsule complex on a short journey into suborbital space. According to Blue Origin, this will be the vehicle’s first mission.
NS-27 will launch from the company’s West Texas site during a period that opens at 9 a.m. EDT (1 p.m. GMT, 8 a.m. local time in Texas). Once the company releases its feed, as expected, you’ll be able to watch the action live via Blue Origin and here on Space.com. Coverage begins at 8:45 a.m. ET (1245 GMT).
NS-27 marks the debut of the second New Shepard vehicle to be evaluated by humans. The vehicle consists of a first stage known as Booster 5 and a crew capsule known as RSS Karman Line. (The Kármán line is the 102-mile-high boundary that many believe is the beginning of the universe.)
“The vehicle features technology upgrades to improve the vehicle’s performance and reusability, as well as updated livery and payload accommodation on the booster,” Blue Origin said. In a statement today (October 4th), he wrote:.
Although there will be no one onboard NS-27, the mission will carry 12 research payloads, five of which will be carried in the booster and seven within the capsule. According to Blue Origin, the equipment includes a new navigation system developed for New Shepard and Blue Origin’s giant New Glenn rocket, as well as two systems designed to operate in the lunar environment. It reportedly includes a LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensor.
As its name suggests, NS-27 will be the 27th New Shepard mission overall. Eight of the vehicle’s 26 flights to date have crew members on board, sending up to six people at a time on short journeys to the final frontier.
All eight of these manned flights used the same New Shepard vehicle, the Booster 4/RSS First Step combo. This second crewed spacecraft will allow the company to “expand its flight capabilities to further meet growing customer demand,” the company said in a statement today.
