After 14 months, a new and improved New Shepard flies again

When Blue Origin last flew its New Shepard system, the spacecraft intentionally triggered its abort system 45 seconds after launch. As the spacecraft blasted away from the booster, its escape motor slammed the rocket with 70,000 pounds of off-axis force and hot exhaust. Nevertheless, both the spacecraft and rocket returned safely to the West Texas launch site for a successful test flight.

In the 14 months since that abort-test flight, Blue Origin has been working on an upgraded version of the rocket—to improve its capacity for rapid, low-cost reusability—and the capsule in which six passengers will eventually ride to space inside. For example, the test capsule used during flights in late 2015 and 2016 had painted-on windows. The new variant has actual windows, which at 3.6 feet tall may be the largest of any spacecraft that has flown into space.

On Tuesday, Blue Origin finally put the revamped New Shepard system to the test. During a 10 minute, 6 second flight shortly before noon in Texas, the next-generation booster and what the company is calling Crew Capsule 2.0 ascended to 99km above sea level (just shy of the Kármán Line delineating the edge of space). After reaching a maximum ascent velocity of Mach 2.94, the capsule returned to Earth under parachutes, landing at a speed of just 1mph. The booster, too, made a controlled landing.

According to the company, the capsule carried "Mannequin Skywalker," an instrumented test dummy to determine how the flight would affect human participants, as well as 12 commercial, research, and education payloads. It did not immediately release any data from the test dummy sensors. Blue Origin also waited about 12 hours after the test to release images and to confirm that a successful test had taken place—a reversion toward secrecy after Blue Origin had become more open about its test flight program in 2016. Perhaps this was due to newness of this hardware.

The earlier version of the New Shepard booster had flown five times, and the capsule six times, before they were retired. When it begins commercial tourism flights, perhaps in a year or so, Blue Origin intends to reuse its crew capsule and booster system for dozens of flights. Tuesday's successful test could allow "test passengers" to begin flying on the vehicle in the spring or summer of 2018.

Listing image by Blue Origin