Blue Origin will have to wait a bit longer to debut its second human-rated spacecraft.
Jeff Bezos‘ aerospace company planned to launch its uncrewed NS-27 mission Monday morning (Oct. 7), sending a brand-new New Shepard rocket-capsule combo on a brief trip to suborbital space. But technical issues intervened.
“We’re going to scrub the launch for today. They’re troubleshooting a vehicle issue that will basically take us outside our available launch window,” Joel Eby, creative director at Blue Origin, said during the company’s launch webcast on Monday.
“Always disappointing to get to this point,” Eby added. “But, you know, we want to make sure all these systems are completely ready to go and be certain about the launch conditions for flight.”
Blue Origin has not yet announced a new target date for NS-27, which will launch from the company’s West Texas site. Whenever the liftoff occurs, you can watch the action live via Blue Origin and here at Space.com, courtesy of the company.
NS-27 will mark the debut of the second human-rated New Shepard vehicle, which consists of a first stage known as Booster 5 and a crew capsule named RSS Kármán Line. (The Kármán line is the 62-mile-high boundary that many people regard as the start of outer space.)
“The vehicle features technology upgrades to improve the vehicle’s performance and reusability, an updated livery and accommodations for payloads on the booster,” Blue Origin wrote in a statement on Oct. 4.
No people will go up on NS-27, but the mission will fly 12 research payloads, five of them on the booster and seven inside the capsule. This gear includes new navigation systems developed for New Shepard and Blue Origin’s huge New Glenn rocket, as well as two LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors designed to operate in the lunar environment, according to Blue Origin.
As its name suggests, NS-27 will be the 27th New Shepard mission overall. Eight of the vehicle’s 26 flights to date have been crewed, sending up to six people at a time on brief trips to the final frontier.
Those eight crewed flights have all used the same New Shepard vehicle — the Booster 4/RSS First Step combo. This second human-rated spacecraft will enable “expanded flight capacity to better meet growing customer demand,” the company wrote in today’s statement.
Source: https://www.space.com/blue-origin-new-shepard-vehicle-debut-ns-27-launch
