Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture successfully sent a brand-new New Shepard rocket ship on an uncrewed shakedown cruise today, with the aim of increasing the company’s capacity to take people on suborbital space trips.
The capsule, dubbed RSS Karman Line, carried payloads instead of people when it lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 10:27 a.m. CT (8:27 a.m. PT). But if all the data collected during the 10-minute certification flight checks out, it won’t be long before crews climb aboard for similar flights.
“Hopefully very soon we’ll see astronauts on board this vehicle,” launch commentator Joel Eby said after the capsule’s touchdown. “I want to say ‘welcome to the fleet’ for this brand-new vehicle.”
New Shepard spacecraft have now flown 27 times since 2015, with this mission designated NS-27. Eight of those missions have carried a total of 43 crew members in a human-rated capsule called RSS First Step. (RSS stands for “reusable spaceship.”) RSS Karman Line, which is named after the internationally accepted 100-kilometer boundary of outer space, should open the way for Blue Origin to pick up the pace of crewed flights going forward.
