Blue Origin’s NS-31 mission successfully launched from Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:30 a.m. ET (8:30 a.m. CDT) this morning, marking the 11th crewed flight of the New Shepard rocket. This was a historic suborbital flight, notable for being the first all-female crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn NG-1 mission has successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch was postponed twice – January 10 and 12 – due to rough offshore weather that could affect a rocket landing on the company’s recovery ship in the Atlantic.
Blue Origin successfully launched their 27th mission today, and it also marked the debut of their second human-rated vehicle for the New Shepard program, enabling expanded flight capacity to better meet growing customer demand.
Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut was fortunate enough to get an up-close look at Blue Origin‘s new Glenn launch pad at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) and recorded the tour for us all to enjoy. The New Glenn vehicle is named after John Glenn and stands more than 320 feet high, with a seven-meter payload fairing.
Blue Origin successfully completed their 7th crewed flight to the edge of space. The crew included: Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, Gopi Thotakura, and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight, who was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate but never had the opportunity to fly.
Blue Origin successfully completed its 24th New Shepard flight after launching from its West Texas West site on Tuesday at approximately 11:44 a.m. EST. The first stage of the rocket safely touched down near its landing site, as planned, while the spacecraft parachuted to Earth.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin unveils the Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) lunar cargo lander that is planned to be launched within three years and remain on the lunar surface. In addition to providing safe, reliable, and affordable access to the lunar environment, it offers cargo transport, leveraging the 7-meter fairing of the New Glenn launch vehicle, to deliver up to three metric tons anywhere on the Moon.
Blue Origin has managed to fabricate a functional solar cell prototype using lunar regolith stimulants. This simulated moon dust is both chemically as well as mineral accurate to the real thing, taking into account for both lunar variability in grain size as well as bulk chemistry.
It’s official, Blue Origin has completed yet another successful launch by blasting its first six-person crew into suborbital space on Saturday (Dec. 11). This New Shepard NS-19 mission also set six other records, including sending the tallest person to fly into space and the first parent-child pair to lift off together. The crew consisted of TV personality / football star Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, the oldest daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to fly into space.
Blue Origin has partnered with Sierra Space to build Orbital Reef, a commercially developed and operated space station in low Earth orbit. It’s being called a “mixed use business park,” but in space, and with human-centered space architecture as well as world-class services and amenities. The goal is to minimize cost and complexity for both traditional space operators and new arrivals.