Blue Origin's New Shepard launches, lands in Texas test flight

With a successful test flight carrying a mannequin and experiments Wednesday morning in Texas, Blue Origin took another step toward becoming the first private company to launch astronauts into space.

The company said the ninth test of its suborbital New Shepard rocket and capsule, both of which landed intact, demonstrated that passengers could safely abort from an emergency at any point during the climb to space. 

"Crew capsule looks great even after it was pushed hard by the escape test," company founder Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder and CEO of Amazon.com, said on Twitter. "Astronauts would have had an exhilarating ride and safe landing." 

Seattle-based Blue Origin hopes to fly test pilots on New Shepard for the first time later this year, after more test flights.

The company is marketing the opportunity to fly suborbital tourist rides from Texas that will offer a few minutes of weightlessness while looking down at Earth through the largest windows ever flown in space.

[State set to support SpaceX, Blue Origin facilities at KSC]

It has not, however, announced a price for tickets or begun selling them.

"So important, this test for us today," said Ariane Cornell, head of astronaut strategy and sales at Blue Origin, during a webcast of Wednesday's test flight. "The safety system is absolutely important to understand before we put people on board the capsule. We can’t wait to take you guys to space on this one day."

Blue Origin also has built a large factory at Kennedy Space Center where it will build much larger New Glenn rockets for orbital flights of satellites or people from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, possibly starting in 2020. 

New Shepard blasted off from a pad near Van Horn, Texas, a little after 11 a.m. Eastern time, firing Blue Origin's hydrogen-fueled BE-3 main engine.

Less than three minutes into the flight, about 250,000 feet up, the capsule carrying "Mannequin Skywalker" and a slate of experiments, including some supported by NASA, separated from the booster.

Then about 20 seconds later, the capsule fired a solid-fuel escape motor producing 70,000 pounds of thrust to shoot the spacecraft to its highest altitude yet, about 390,000 feet — about 40,000 feet higher than it has traveled before.

The booster deployed stabilizing fins and brakes and fired its main engine again to slow its descent, successfully landing for the third time about two miles north of where it lifted off. 

An earlier version of the New Shepard booster that flew five times now is on display inside the entrance to the company's New Glenn manufacturing facility on Merritt Island.

A little over 11 minutes after the liftoff Wednesday, the capsule floated to the ground under three blue-and-red main parachutes, firing a retro rocket moments before landing a short distance from the booster.

Previous flights have tested the capsule's escape system as if it was aborting from the launch pad and at the point where the rocket experienced peak aerodynamic pressure.

Blue Origin said it expects to fly at least "a couple" more test flights before people board the capsule.

"This is just the beginning," Bezos said in a promotional video before the test flight. 

Another company, Virgin Galactic, also is performing test flights of a system it hopes will become a commercial suborbital spaceline, flying from New Mexico. SpaceShipTwo recently completing a second rocket-powered flight in California, but has yet to reach space.

Company founder Sir Richard Branson in May said he hoped to fly to space within a year. Tickets cost $250,000.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SpaceTeamGo.

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