Jeff Bezoz - Spaceflight
 

I sincerely hope they know what they're doing.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57386049

It's dangerous enough, but if they want to do it — why not?

At the end of the day its an Amazon delivery, so I'm sure it will land safely. Just at the wrong Landing Facility, they'll leave the capsule behind the shed and pop a card through the letter box.

Risky, but it's not a terrible way to incentivise its potential safety, sending up the company's founder. This is provided it doesn't detonate or something like many of SpaceX's pieces! :P

I hope they'll test it enough times to avoid the destiny of most of SpaceX prototypes

They already have, exhaustively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin#Flights

Compared to the Falcon it’s a toy - straight up to just over the astronaut badge line and then separate from the capsule straight back down, leaving the capsule to get down on a parachute. It’s a tourist ride comparable to Virgin Galactic rather than an orbital launch system.

No orbital velocity to reach, no burn back to launch site required.

They have plans for orbital capable systems (New Glenn) and bid for the NASA moon lander (Blue Moon) but lost to SpaceX. A timeline for orbit is given of 2024, I’m not holding my breath.

Sorry, but Virgin Galactic does not go to the Karman Line.....the highest they have gone is 88km.
In the US the FAA and NASA use 80km as a jurisdictional boundary, as what the US recognizes as a countries sovereign territory....

The Karman Line is Internationally recognized as the boundary of space at 100m....Blue origin spacecraft has gone over 100km 13 times....

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...at-blue-origin

Sold! Bidder pays $28m for spare seat on space flight with Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has sold the spare seat of the company’s 20 July New Shepard space rocket blast-off for $28m, the company announced on Saturday.

With 20 active bidders starting at $4.8m during the 10-minute auction, bids escalated in the final three minutes of the sale. Initially, some 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries, the company said.

The winner, whose identity has not been announced, will join the Amazon founder Bezos and his brother Mark on the flight….. The capsule will carry as many as six passengers, though the company has not yet revealed who else will be onboard……

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...lot-wally-funk

‘No one has waited longer’: trailblazing female pilot Wally Funk will go to space with Bezos

Wally Funk, a trailblazing female pilot denied the job of astronaut in the 1960s over her gender, will finally get the chance to fulfill her dreams of going into space.

Billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Thursday on Instagram that Funk will be part of a four-person crew set to be launched into space by Blue Origin during a 10-minute flight on his rocket New Shepard later this month.

Funk, 82, will be the oldest person ever to travel into space, after the late John Glenn set the current record at age 77 while aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to go up,” Funk said in a video interview posted on the company’s website.

Funk was one of the “Mercury 13” pilots who volunteered in 1961 to be part of a program to get women to qualify for Nasa’s astronaut program, independently led by William Randolph Lovelace, head of Nasa’s committee on life science.

At 21, Funk graduated third in her class after undergoing rigorous physical and mental tests created by Lovelace.

“They told me I had done better or completed the work faster than any of the guys,” Funk said in Bezos’ video.

The program was abruptly cancelled when the federal government decided women shouldn’t be allowed to use the military facilities needed for space training. None of the women ever made it into space – but now, Funk has the opportunity to do so on 20 July.

“No one has waited longer,” said Bezos in his post, calling Funk an “honored guest”.…..

Funk, a Texas resident, became the first female inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration in 1971, and the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board in 1974. Funk said she has taught over 3,000 people to fly.

“I can’t tell people that are watching how fabulous I feel to be picked by Blue Origin to go on this trip,” she said.

“You’re going to be an astronaut!” said an unnamed person in the video. “Finally,” replied Funk. “I can hardly wait.”

Ouch…..

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...g-livestreams/

SpaceX tops off Starship launch tower during Blue Origin crew launch briefing

On Sunday morning, SpaceX began the process of installing the last prefabricated section of Starship’s skyscraper-sized ‘launch tower’ around the same time as startup Blue Origin kicked off a preflight briefing for its first crewed suborbital launch.

Though both events are almost entirely unconnected and have no immediate impact on each other, the simultaneity almost immediately triggered comparisons between one of the most important media briefings in Blue Origin’s 21-year history and an average busy day at SpaceX’s South Texas Starship factory and launch site. ….

As of July 2021, Blue Origin has completed just 15 New Shepard test flights – 14 of which were fully successful – in six years.

In the same period, SpaceX successfully recovered an orbital-class Falcon 9 booster for the first time, reused a Falcon booster on a commercial satellite launch, debuted Falcon Heavy, reused several orbital Cargo Dragon capsules three times each, debuted Crew Dragon, became the first company in history to launch astronauts, completed its first operational astronaut launch for NASA, hopped three Starship prototypes, flew five Starship prototypes to 10-15 km, successfully landed four Raptor-powered Starship prototypes, rolled out Starship’s first completed booster prototype, completed more than 100 successful orbital launches, flown the same Falcon 9 booster ten times (versus New Shepard’s record of seven flights), reused orbital-class boosters 68 times, created the world’s largest satellite constellation, and far, far more.

Along those lines, on Saturday, July 17th, SpaceX teams attached a massive crane to the seventh prefabricated section of a ‘launch tower’ that could eventually support Starship and Super Heavy stacking – and maybe even catch ships and boosters. On Sunday, not long after daybreak and about an hour before Blue Origin’s New Shepard-16 preflight briefing, that tower section lifted off under the watchful eye of several unofficial cameras operated by NASASpaceflight, LabPadre, and others.

By the end of Blue Origin’s briefing, most of which involved executives or senior employees reading from scripts and none of which offered a look at actual flight hardware or “astronaut” preparations, the eighth launch tower section was mostly in place, creating a structure some 135m (~440 ft) tall.

By the end of NASASpaceflight.com’s unofficial six-hour stream, the outlet’s excellent and unaffiliated coverage of SpaceX erecting part of a relatively simple tower for the seventh time had been viewed more than a quarter of a million times.

By the end of Blue Origin’s official preflight briefing for a crewed launch set to carry the richest person on Earth, the company had accrued around 20,000 views on YouTube….

Blast off in two minutes - will my pasty be ready to eat before they land, never mind launch...

And... they're back!

How many dollars is that a minute?

Glad someone with the ‘right stuff’ as opposed to the ‘folding green stuff’ got her ride. :E

Pretty remarkable job though :ok:

Classic Dan Dare spaceship (Eagle comic 1950)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_(British_comics)#/media/File:Eagle_1950_issue_1_front_page.jpg
I had the first copy, and now reality.

Looked like a bumpy landing…

Really? Difficult to see because of the dust but it looked like the thruster system (for want of a better description) pretty much killed the rate of descent at touchdown…

Nope, smooth as silk. The retro fire for about a second just before touchdown, cushioning the landing. Lots of dust but very soft.

Interesting, thank you wiggy and TURIN. Not having followed this too carefully, I now find the details to be amazing. I was sure that the thruster had either failed or gone off too late, compared to other landings I've seen.

As to the silhouette, though, I think Freud might have a word to say from beyond the grave.

The pre- touchdown retro fire certainly wasn’t as obvious as it is on most Soyuz landings…the commentator on the live feed referred to it as an air jet or air thruster:bored: system whereas other sources say it’s retro rockets (which is what Soyuz uses), be interesting to know what’s actually used.

FWIW the answer (as far as it goes) is tucked away on the Blue Origin website and was a phrase used pretty much verbatim by the official commentator on the day..

“ The bottom of the capsule has a retro-thrust system that expels a pillow of air so the capsule lands at just 1.6 km/h (1 mph) ”…

so unlike Soyuz it’s not a pyrotechnic system, which would explain the lack of flames, smoke, and relative lack of dust.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5e5da4a534.jpg

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/09/1...-ns-23-launch/

Blue Origin capsule escapes rocket failure on uncrewed flight over Texas

The suborbital rocket developed by Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin suffered its first launch failure Monday, when the main engine on the New Shepard booster appeared to cut out about a minute after liftoff from West Texas. The crew capsule, which carried NASA-funded experiments but no people, safely landed under parachutes after firing an abort motor to escape the stricken booster.

The unplanned in-flight abort saved the company’s reusable capsule, and the mission’s experiment payloads stowed inside. But one of Blue Origin’s two operational suborbital New Shepard boosters, which hosted its own research payloads, was lost in the launch failure.

Blue Origin’s live webcast showed the rocket lifting off from the company’s sprawling 80,000-acre launch facility north of Van Horn, Texas, around 10:26 a.m. EDT (9:26 a.m. CDT; 1426 GMT), after a nearly hour-long delay.

A single hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine powered the 60-foot-tall (18-meter) booster off the launch pad. About a minute after liftoff, as the rocket neared supersonic speed, the plume from the BE-3 engine appeared to change color and shape, then the powerplant appeared to shut down, causing the rocket to tilt off its planned trajectory at an altitude of around 28,000 feet (8,500 meters).

The solid-fueled abort motor on bottom of the crew capsule fired immediately, delivering an instant pulse of 70,000 pounds of thrust to push the craft away from the failing rocket.

The four-ton capsule spun around and tumbled after the abort motor’s brief firing, which propelled the vehicle hundreds of feet away from the New Shepard rocket. Guided by reaction control system thrusters, the capsule’s motion stabilized as it deployed three drogue parachutes and three main chutes for a relatively gentle ride back to the ground. The capsule was designed to touch down at a speed of around 3 mph (5 kilometers per hour).

Considering what they all is playing with I’m surprised there’s not a lot more incidents.

Incredibly inspiring stuff though…:cool:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/05/1...nder-contract/

NASA awards Blue Origin $3.4 billion Artemis moon lander contract

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build an Artemis lunar lander that will provide a downstream alternative to the Starship variant already being developed by SpaceX, the agency announced Friday.

“We are going to the Moon! Honored to be on this journey with @nasa to land astronauts on the Moon — this time to stay,” Bezos said in an Instagram post.

John Couluris, Blue Origin vice president for lunar transportation, said the company expects to chip in “well north” of the contract value to fully develop its “Blue Moon” lander, pushing the total cost of the project to around $7 billion. The first piloted landing, part of the fifth Artemis mission, is expected in the 2029 timeframe.

“On behalf of Blue Origin and the national team, I want to thank NASA personally,” Couluris said. “We’re very honored and humbled to be part of this incredible experience. We’re looking forward to participating on Artemis 5, and we’re looking forward to working together.”

Blue Origin’s national team includes Lockheed Martin, which will provide a refueling and servicing spacecraft; Boeing, which will supply docking technology; Draper, supplying guidance, navigation and simulator technology; Astrobotic Technology, with expertise in payload accommodations; and Honeybee Robotics to handle cargo delivery systems.

The contract requires Blue Origin to fly an unpiloted dress-rehearsal landing before astronauts float aboard and descend to the lunar surface during the Artemis 5 mission. That flight will follow the initial Artemis 3 moon landing, using SpaceX’s lander, in the 2025-26 timeframe.…

FAA Statement on closure to the New Shepard mishap investigation:

"The FAA has closed the Blue Origin New Shepard 23 mishap investigation. The final report cites the proximate cause of the Sept. 12, 2022, mishap as the structural failure of an engine nozzle caused by higher-than-expected engine operating temperatures. The FAA required Blue Origin implement 21 corrective actions to prevent mishap reoccurrence, including redesign of engine and nozzle components to improve structural performance during operation as well as organizational changes.

During the mishap the onboard launch vehicle systems detected the anomaly, triggered an abort and separation of the capsule from the propulsion module as intended and shut down the engine. The capsule landed safety and the propulsion module was destroyed upon impact with the ground. All debris landed within the designated hazard area. Public safety was maintained at all times with no injuries or public property damage."

Addition notes on the FAA e-mail:

The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of New Shepard launches. Blue Origin must implement all corrective actions that impact public safety and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next New Shepard launch.

Background:

The FAA oversaw the Blue Origin-led investigation to ensure the company complied with its FAA-approved mishap plan, the terms and conditions of its license and other regulatory requirements.

The FAA was involved in every step of the mishap investigation and granted NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board official observer status.

The mishap investigation report contains proprietary data and U.S Export Control information and is not available for public release.
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New Glenn erect on launch pad for first time for tests…

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue...our-launch-pad

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....610a5054bc.png