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For the second time in 2019, Blue Origin piloted its New Shepard suborbital rocket with dozens of experiments, many of them as part of NASA's Flight Opportunities program.
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Derek Richardson
May 2, 2019
An archive photo of a previous New Shepard rocket launch. Photo credit: Blue Origin
For the second time in 2019, Blue Origin piloted its New Shepard suborbital rocket with dozens of experiments, many of which were part of NASA's Flight Opportunities program.
Nicknamed NS-11, the unarmed flight was the 11th for a New Shepard rocket and the fifth for the third recall serial number. This mission flew 38 payloads over the 62-mile (100 km) space limit, including nine as part of NASA's Flight Opportunities program.
"It's all morning," said Ariane Cornell, Director of Astronaut and Orbit Sales at Blue Origin, during the company's webcast. "There is nothing better than a day's work in quotation marks for launching and taking off rockets."
The recall used during the NS-11 New Shepard flight was a touchdown just over seven minutes after its launch in West Texas. Photo credit: Blue Origin
The takeoff took place shortly after 8:30 am (Paris time) (2:30 GMT) on May 2, 2019, from the Blue Origin facility in West Texas. The 18-meter (59-foot) high reusable booster / booster stack ignited its unique BE-3 engine and accelerated to a top speed of approximately 2200 mph (3500 km / h) before to be interrupted as planned.
About 15 seconds later, the capsule is separated with the booster. Both continued their ballistic trajectory over the imaginary frontier of space – the Karman Line – to about 105 000 meters (656 000 feet) or 65 kilometers (65 miles). However, Blue Origin has indicated that it will update these figures as soon as a more formal estimate is determined.
While descending, the propeller, using a ring wing and brakes, made a motorized landing on a concrete surface near its starting point. He sat about seven minutes, 25 seconds after the start of the mission.
Meanwhile, the capsule containing the experiments continued its descent to the ground. At approximately 3000 meters altitude, a series of deployed parachutes resulted in three main sails. This slowed the vehicle to about 16 mph (25 km / h) before touching the ground about 10 minutes after launch.
To further dampen its decency, the capsule is equipped with a rear-fire air system that ignites a few moments before touchdown. Once people have landed in the capsule, perhaps as early as the end of 2019, this is designed to make their landing as safe as possible.
The booster and the capsule should be reused during a next flight.
Experiments aboard the NS-11 mission include a technology demonstration designed to "treat a collapsed lung in zero gravity", a high school experiment to test temperature fluctuations in microgravity, and a two-project MIT Media Lab initiative. using microgravity "as a support for works of art", according to Blue Origin.
Students from Central Square Central School in New York perform a foam experiment using equipment that was tested during flight NS-11. It is hoped that this standardized framework will allow the experiences developed in the classroom to take aboard the next New Shepard flight. Photo credit: Teachers in the space
Many of these experiments, designed and developed by students, teachers and small businesses, have been made possible by NASA's Flight Opportunities program, which, according to the space agency, "allows researchers to test technologies in a relevant environment ". The agency is looking for innovations that will help it in its quest to return to the moon and send people to Mars.
"We are about to give students and teachers the opportunity to build and conduct affordable space experiments," said Elizabeth Kennick, president of Teachers in space, in a press release issued by NASA the day before the launch. . "When teachers are so excited about experimenting in space, their students can not help being so excited about space."
Other experiments include a 3D printing demonstration from the University of Kentucky, a suborbital NanoRacks centrifuge, and a propellant gauging experiment from Purdue University.
New Shepherd Blue Origin is not the only vehicle that the company based in Kent, Washington, is working to develop. In 2021, a much larger new rocket called New Glenn is expected to make its first flight and extend NewSpace's business model to the orbital space.
In addition, Blue Origin and its BE-4 engine – the engine design that will be used for the first stage of New Glenn – will also be used on the United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket when it launches for the first time in the same of time.
In addition, the company should make some sort of announcement on May 9, 2019, possibly regarding an activity involving the Moon. Blue Origin plans to develop a lunar lander tentatively called Blue Moon. However, it is not clear whether this mysterious adMade using only a date and an image of the ship "Endurance" used by Ernest Shackleton during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 – it will be a lander on the Moon or some other thing.
Shackleton is also carrying a crater named after him near the lunar south pole – the destination set by Vice President Mike Pence in March 2019 in his challenge to NASA to return to the Moon by 2024.
Video courtesy of Blue Origin
Tagged: Key Stories of NASA New Zealand's Blue Origin Flight Opportunities Program NS-11 West Texas
Derek Richardson
Derek Richardson is a graduate in mass media with a specialization in contemporary journalism from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. When he was in Washburn, he was the editor of the newspaper led by students, the Washburn Review. He also has a blog on the International Space Station called Orbital Velocity. He met with members of the SpaceFlight Insider team during the flight of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket with the MUOS-4 satellite. Richardson joined our team shortly thereafter.
His passion for space was ignited when he watched the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery in space on October 29, 1998. Today, this fervor is still alive and well. is accelerated to orbit and shows no signs of slowing down. After attending math and engineering courses at the university, he quickly realized that his true calling was to communicate with others about the space. Since joining SpaceFlight Insider in 2015, Richardson has worked to improve the quality of our content and ultimately become our editor-in-chief. @TheSpaceWriter
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