Blue Origin is now targeting Tuesday (Feb. 4) for its first-ever moon-gravity mission.
The company first tried to launch the NS-29 mission of its New Shepardsuborbital vehicle on Jan. 28, but called off that try due to uncooperative weather and an issue with the rocket’s avionics.
But everything appears to be in order now. Blue Origin, which is run by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, plans to fly the uncrewed NS-29 on Tuesday morning.
If all goes according to plan, New Shepard — a reusable rocket-capsule combo — will lift off on Tuesday from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site at 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT; 10:00 a.m. local Texas time). The company will stream the action live, beginning 15 minutes before liftoff.
NS-29 is a research flight; it will carry 30 science payloads, 29 of which will test moon-related tech. In a first for Blue Origin, the payloads will experience two minutes of simulated lunar gravity, which the New Shepard capsule will induce by spinning at a rate of 11 revolutions per minute.
“The flight will test 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,” Blue Origin wrote in an NS-29 mission description.
NASA is a big part of NS-29, supporting more than half of the 30 payloads via its Flight Opportunities Program. Data gathered on the brief suborbital flight will aid the agency’s Artemis program, which is working to get astronauts back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era.
As its name suggests, NS-29 will be the 29th New Shepard flight. Nine of its 28 missions to date have been space tourist jaunts.
From Space.com