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Blue of origin New Shepard suborbital vehicle will launch its 11th test flight this morning (May 2nd) and you will watch the action live on space flights.
The reusable rocket-capsule combination is to take off from Blue Origin's test site in West Texas at 9:30 am EDT (1:30 pm GMT, 8:30 am Texas local time). The unmanned flight will carry 38 payloads of microgravity research in the suborbital space and vice versa, company representatives announced via Twitter on Wednesday (May 1).
You can watch live here at Space.com, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company website.
Related: Launch photos! Blue Origin's new Shepard flies to NASA on the NS-10
New Shepard is named after NASA astronaut Alan Shepardwhich in May 1961 became the first American to reach space. Shepard's mission was suborbital, unlike that of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who arrived in Earth orbit a few weeks earlier.
New Shepard is designed to carry paying customers, giving them unparalleled views of the Earth against the darkness of space and a few minutes of weightlessness (for a price that remains unknown, Blue Origin did not disclose the price of a square.). The first crewed flights of the vehicle could take place this year, said representatives of Blue Origin.
But New Shepard will also serve scientific purposes, carrying payloads for researchers.
Indeed, there are nine different studies of NASA on the flight of tomorrow. They include a 3D printing test that could help in the fabrication of space for future lunar bases, a sub-orbital centrifuge for life sciences studies, and a survey of the behavior of space and space. Lunar dust.
These studies are just NASA's latest experiments on New Shepard. On the recent NS-10 test flight of the vehicle, which lifted in January, totaled several experiments for the space agency.
This mission lasted 10 minutes 15 seconds and reached a maximum altitude of 107 kilometers, said officials of Blue Origin.
The New Shepard rocket returns to Earth vertically, slowing its descent via engine fire like the first stages of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. The capsule of the suborbital craft descends under a parachute.
New Shepard will be a stepping stone to much more ambitious projects, if everything goes as planned. Blue Origin's long-term vision is to help millions of people live and work in space, said company founder Jeff Bezos. And Blue Origin already has a number of other projects in progress, big rockets called New Glenn and New Armstrong to the Moon Moon lander.
Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there"(Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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