Blue Origin to resume New Shepard test flights next week?
Capitalism in space: An FAA airspace notice published yesterday strongly suggests that Blue Origin will resume test flights of its New Shepard suborbital spacecraft next week.
The Notice to Airman, or NOTAM, published by the FAA on its website Dec. 9 closes airspace above Blue Origin’s test site between Dec. 11 and 14, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern each day. The closure is to “provide a safe environment for rocket launch and recovery.” The NOTAM does not give additional details about the planned activities, but does identify Blue Origin as the point of contact regarding the airspace closure.
The flight will test a new capsule and propulsion unit, as the vehicle that was test flown multiple times in the previous test flights has been retired. What is interesting is that the company says it is building more than one. This will give them a fleet which will allow them a rapid launch rate.
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Capitalism in space: An FAA airspace notice published yesterday strongly suggests that Blue Origin will resume test flights of its New Shepard suborbital spacecraft next week.
The Notice to Airman, or NOTAM, published by the FAA on its website Dec. 9 closes airspace above Blue Origin’s test site between Dec. 11 and 14, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern each day. The closure is to “provide a safe environment for rocket launch and recovery.” The NOTAM does not give additional details about the planned activities, but does identify Blue Origin as the point of contact regarding the airspace closure.
The flight will test a new capsule and propulsion unit, as the vehicle that was test flown multiple times in the previous test flights has been retired. What is interesting is that the company says it is building more than one. This will give them a fleet which will allow them a rapid launch rate.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
From the article: “Those future test flights, she said then, would also use a version of the crew capsule that includes the large windows the company has promoted as the largest ever to be flown on a spacecraft. The capsule on the earlier test flights had only the locations of the windows painted on its exterior. ‘It’s a really important next step,’ … ‘We have a whole test program ahead of us.’”
I was wondering about the long time that it was taking between the previous tests and these next tests. At the time of the abort test, I had expected that they had already built the next rocket and would carry on fairly quickly. It is clear to me, now, that they have done some redesign based upon what they learned from the previous version, and the “whole test program” (rather than the second half or final stages of their test program) is to verify that the updated design works as planned.
I do not know what certifications are required in order to fly paying passengers on a rocket, but I am sure that they are part of the next-step test-program.
Meanwhile, it will be good to see them flying again, and it may satisfy my curiosity about how quickly they can turn around a rocket and a capsule — possibly different turnaround times.