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Jeff Bezos’ personal house firm Blue Origin is about to launch the fifteenth check flight of its New Shepard rocket booster and capsule on Wednesday, a system designed to hold individuals on quick journeys to the sting of house.
The mission doesn’t have passengers on board, though the capsule on high of the rocket is designed to hold as many as six individuals for future flights. Often called NS-15, the mission will launch from Blue Origin’s personal facility in West Texas and marks a “verification step” for the rocket and capsule earlier than flying individuals, the corporate stated.
New Shepard is designed to carrying individuals on a trip previous the sting of house, with the capsules on earlier check flights reaching an altitude of greater than 340,000 ft (or greater than 100 kilometers). The capsule spends as a lot as 10 minutes in zero gravity earlier than returning to Earth, with large home windows to present passengers a view.
A New Shepard rocket launches on a check flight.
Blue Origin
NS-15 is predicted to signify the second of two “secure configuration” check flights, CNBC reported in January, after the NS-14 mission featured the debut of a brand new rocket booster and upgraded capsule. Whereas Blue Origin has solely stated that the primary crewed flights can be “quickly,” sources advised CNBC in January that the corporate’s management hopes to launch its first crew on the NS-16 mission.
The corporate confirmed CNBC’s reporting that NS-15 will characteristic a check of loading and unloading the crew. Blue Origin calls these “astronaut operational workouts,” a key step in making ready for launching passengers.
“The first operations will entail Blue Origin personnel standing in as astronauts coming into into the capsule previous to launch. These astronauts will climb the launch tower, get into their seats, buckle their harnesses, and conduct a communications verify from their seat with CAPCOM, the Capsule Communicator. The tower operations crew will put together the capsule cabin for launch after which briefly shut the capsule hatch. The astronauts will then exit the capsule previous to launch,” the corporate stated in a weblog put up.
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos opens the capsule of the brand new Shepard Rocket after a launch.
Blue Origin
After the capsule lands, Blue Origin stated its personnel will re-enter the capsule to rehearse opening the hatch and exiting the spacecraft.