Blue Origin successfully completed its 29th New Shepard flight and 14th payload mission today from Launch Site One in West Texas. The payloads experienced roughly two minutes of lunar gravity forces. The New Shepard crew capsule used its reaction control system to spin up to approximately 11 revolutions per minute, simulating one-sixth Earth gravity at the midpoint of the crew capsule lockers.
The flight carried 30 payloads from NASA, research institutions, and commercial companies, bringing the number of payloads flown on New Shepard to more than 175. Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s nonprofit, flew thousands of postcards as part of its Postcards to Space program. Each postcard will be returned to its creator stamped “Flown to Space.”
Key mission statistics #
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Official Launch Time: 10:00:00 AM CST / 16:00:00 UTC
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Booster Apogee: 341,700 ft AGL / 345,347 ft MSL (104 km AGL / 105 km MSL)
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Crew Capsule Apogee: 341,944 ft AGL / 345,591 ft MSL (104 km AGL / 105 km MSL)
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Crew Capsule Landing Time: 10:10:06 AM CST / 16:10:06 UTC
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Mission Elapsed Time: 10 minutes, 6 seconds
“New Shepard’s ability to provide a lunar gravity environment is an extremely unique and valuable capability as researchers set their sights on a return to the Moon,” said Phil Joyce, SVP, New Shepard. “This enables researchers to test lunar technologies at a fraction of the cost, rapidly iterate, and test again in a significantly compressed timeframe.” Launch Site One in West Texas.
The payloads experienced at least two minutes of lunar gravity forces, a first for New Shepard and made possible in part through support from NASA. The flight tested six broad lunar technology areas: In-situ resource utilization, dust mitigation, advanced habitation systems, sensors and instrumentation, small spacecraft technologies, and entry descent and landing. Proving out these technologies at lower cost was another step toward Blue Origin’s mission to lower the cost of access to space for the benefit of Earth. It also enables NASA and other lunar surface technology providers to test innovations critical to achieving Artemis program goals and exploring the Moon’s surface.
The New Shepard crew capsule used its Reaction Control System (RCS) to spin up to approximately 11 revolutions per minute. This spin rate simulated one-sixth Earth gravity at the midpoint of the crew capsule lockers. In simulated lunar gravity, customers can accelerate their learning and technology readiness for lunar payloads at much lower cost. Previously, the Moon’s gravity could only be simulated a few seconds at a time via centrifuge drop tower or for ~20 seconds aboard parabolic flights.
New Shepard’s flown more than 175 commercial payloads. Of the mission’s 30 payloads, 29 flew inside the crew capsule and one flew on the booster with exposure to the ambient space environment. More than half were supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, which is managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Four of the payloads were from Honeybee Robotics, a division within Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems business. Honeybee’s experiments tested technologies focused on penetrating, excavating, and processing lunar regolith.
The mission flew BO dedicated payloads capsule paired with the recently-debuted booster, demonstrating the compatibility between the boosters and capsules in our fleet and increasing launch availability for our customers. We now have three capsules and two boosters in service to better address sales demand for payloads and astronauts, stated Blue Origin.
NS-29 Manifest Highlights #
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Electrostatic Dust Lofting (EDL), NASA Kennedy Space Center: EDL is a project studying how Moon dust gets electrically charged and lifted up when exposed to ultraviolet light. Insights from this study will help future lunar missions address dust problems. The project was created by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida along with the University of Central Florida and the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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Fluidic Operations in Reduced Gravity Experiment (FORGE), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): FORGE testes how to manage liquids and gases in space. This technology is critical for instruments that may monitor water quality for astronauts or search for evidence of life on ocean worlds in our solar system.
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Honey Bubble Excitation Experiment (H-BEE), Honeybee Robotics: H-BEE is a tool that evaluated how bubbles would behave in thick liquids on the Moon. The insights will help better predict how oxygen bubbles will act in melted Moon rock during a process called molten regolith electrolysis.
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Soil Properties Assessment Resistance and Thermal Analysis (SPARTA), JPL: SPARTA is a toolkit designed for geomechanical testing below the lunar surface. The test aims to understand how lunar gravity affects its performance. SPARTA was created by JPL in Southern California and developed by Honeybee Robotics.
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Lunar-g Combustion Investigation (LUCI), NASA Glenn Research Center: LUCI is an experiment to study how materials catch fire in the Moon’s gravity compared to Earth’s. The findings will help NASA and its partners create safer living and working habitats for people on the Moon. This project is developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, together with Voyager Technologies.
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Film Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array Micropropulsion System (FEMTA), Purdue University: FEMTA is a water-based micro-propulsion system in development by researchers at Purdue. This small thruster helps precisely control the direction and positioning of small satellites. The experiments are measuring how well FEMTA and its passive propellant delivery system work in the low-gravity environment of space. The experiment flew on the New Shepard booster.