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Blue Origin's first space tourist flight takes off on July 20th
After years of development and more than a handful of delays along the way, Blue Origin plans to attempt the first official flight of its New Shepard spacecraft on July 20th.
Blue Origin's 15th New Shepard test flight serves as an astronaut rehearsal
The launch window for New Shepard's 15th test flight opens on April 14th, 9AM Eastern time. That particular test, aptly codenamed NS-15, will serve as a verification step for the vehicle and its operations prior to flying astronauts to suborbital space.
Blue Origin's upgraded New Shepard vehicle completes its first flight
It’s New Shepard’s 14th mission overall, but it’s the first for both the redesigned crew capsule and its booster.
Watch the Blue Origin sensor test that will help NASA land on the Moon (update: scrubbed)
Blue Origin is set to launch its reusable New Shepard rocket on a suborbital mission today (September 24th) and test sensors for a vehicle that could one day land on the Moon.
Blue Origin has been trying to get the hell off this planet for 20 years now
Blue Origin has built three New Shepards to date. (The crew capsule was unharmed; the rocket stage, not so much.) It comes in two variants: a 270-foot-tall two-stage rocket and a 313-foot-tall three-stage rocket.
Blue Origin might not send humans to space until 2020
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin still plans to offer space tourism trips on its New Shepard rocket, but before any passengers take flight, the company is expected to launch at least two more uncrewed test flights. Tuesday, Blue Origin filed an application for its next test flight with the Federal Communications Commission, CNBC reports. The filing is for "Flight #12 on the New Shepard space launch booster and capsule." The earliest it might happen is November.
Bezos' New Shepard takes off and escorts itself back to the landing pad (video)
Since being awarded $22 million from NASA to develop a commercial space vehicle, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been relatively quiet. There's been a couple of test flights, one of which didn't end so well for the water tank-shaped ship, but we haven't actually gotten to see the New Shepard (a nod to Alan Shepard) in action. Well friends, take a gander after the break to see the reusable, suborbital launch vehicle climb a short distance into the air then gracefully settle back down with the aid its landing thrusters. This particular craft is meant to launch a separate passenger capsule on short suborbital flights, but Blue Origin is also working on an orbital vehicle. But, please, don't waste any more time -- go watch the take off and landing below.
Amazon CEO's flying water tank crashes, leaves dent in his space travel dream
In a moment of profound candidness, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has revealed that the mid-air failure of his unmanned spaceship 11 days ago was "not the outcome any of us wanted." The searing truth of his statement is certainly borne out by the fact that NASA has poured millions of dollars of funding into Bezos's space company, Blue Origin, in the hope that it will one day ferry people to the ISS and replace the scuttled shuttle program. Indeed, Blue Origin's latest craft looked every inch a shuttle-beater until it suddenly went berserk at 45,000 feet, forcing the Asimovian onboard computer to cut power and nose dive into the ground in an effort to avoid civilian casualties. Not an ideal result, to be sure, but Jeff is hardly likely to give up on his starry ambitions -- everybody knows he has a thing for thrusters.
