[ad_1]
Blue Origin is three days away from making history with its first astronaut launch, which will launch billionaire company founder Jeff Bezos and three other passengers on Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
The mission, which will launch on Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard rocket and space capsule, will take off from the company’s Launch Site 1 in West Texas near Van Horn at 9 a.m. EDT (1 p.m. GMT), and yes, there will be a webcast. It is expected to begin around 7:30 a.m. EDT (11:30 GMT) and cover the crew’s walk-out to rocket and other pre-launch activities. You can watch it on Space.com and on BlueOrigin.com.
Blue Origin will hold a pre-launch press conference on Sunday, July 18 at 12:00 p.m. EDT (4:00 p.m. GMT) to discuss launch details. This will be webcast on BlueOrigin.com and simultaneously stream here on Space.com if possible.
Space.com will offer live mission updates here on launch day (which happens to be the 52nd anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 moon landing), as well as in the next few days leading up to launch. .
This mission was long overdue for Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000. The company performed 15 unmanned test flights of its New Shepard rocket and spacecraft, culminating in an “astronaut rehearsal” flight. in April 2021. The company wants to carry paying passengers (and scientists with experiments too) on suborbital space trips that fly more than 62 miles (100 kilometers).
The launch on this flight will be Bezos, 57; her brother Mark Bezos, 53; 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk; and 18-year-old physics student Oliver Daemon, who is Blue Origin’s first paying passenger.
Infographics : How Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket Works
To publicize its first manned space flight, Blue Origin held a public auction for a seat on the flight, which was won by an anonymous bidder for $ 28 million. During the auction, Blue Origin announced that Bezos, his brother and Funk would be on the flight.
But 5 days before the launch, Blue Origin announced that the auction winner had withdrawn from the launch, citing scheduling conflicts. Instead, Daemon joined the crew as his father Joes Daemon submitted the second highest bid in the auction. The amount was not disclosed.
As we prepare for the Blue Origin press conference on Saturday, here are some videos on the upcoming mission from Jeff Bezos, Wally Funk and the company to guide you. – Tariq Malik, editor-in-chief
[ad_2]
Source link