Very cool !
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his space venture, Blue Origin, launched the latest version of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship today for the company’s first test flight in 14 months, with an instrumented test dummy seated aboard. “He had a great ride,” Bezos said tonight in a tweet.
Between November 2015 and October 2016, Blue Origin put an earlier version of the New Shepard through five successful flights to the edge of space and back. Then that spacecraft was retired, and the company’s team in Kent, Wash., turned its focus to building a version of the crew capsule that’s closer to what passengers would eventually be riding. For example, the updated version has actual windows rather than painted-on facsimiles.
In addition to the dummy, which was nicknamed “Mannequin Skywalker,”...
Slow. Clap.
...the New Shepard crew capsule carried 12 commercial, research and educational payloads, Blue Origin said.
The company’s fact sheet said the flight lasted a total of 10 minutes and 6 seconds, starting at 10:59 a.m. CT (8:59 a.m. PT). The booster went nearly three times the speed of sound on the way up (Mach 2.94) and even faster on the way down (Mach 3.74). The capsule’s maximum altitude was listed as 99.39 kilometers, just shy of the internationally accepted 100-kilometer boundary of outer space.
If the current series of flight tests goes well, Blue Origin could start taking people up on suborbital space rides as early as next year. The company isn’t yet taking reservations or publishing its ticket prices. Would-be riders will have to wait until the tests are complete.
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/blue-origin-launches-updated-version-new-shepard-suborbital-spaceship-test-flight/
"Just because I flunked out of art school doesn't mean I'm a dummy!"
ReplyDeleteMannequin Skywalker deserves more acclaim, really.
ReplyDelete