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Blue Origin sends six spacefliers on a suborbital ride

Blue Origin New Shepard rocket liftoff
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship lifts off from its Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture launched six more travelers to the edge of the final frontier today, even as the billionaire and his new wife finished up a weekend of wedding festivities in Venice.

The New Shepard rocket lifted off from the Kent, Wash.-based company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:40 a.m. CT (7:40 a.m. PT) today for a 10-minute mission.

An earlier launch attempt had to be scrubbed on June 21 due to concerns about persistent winds at the launch site.

Bezos himself was otherwise engaged during the buildup to today’s launch: He and former journalist and helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez Bezos left Venice today for their honeymoon after a highly publicized, star-studded weekend of activities surrounding their wedding.

This was Blue Origin’s 33nd New Shepard suborbital launch and its 13th crewed mission. New Shepard’s booster sent the crew capsule to a height of about 105 kilometers (65 miles, or 344,640 feet), just beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude that marks the internationally accepted boundary of space.

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Bill Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson riff on the cosmos

William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson on stage in Seattle
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson laughs as “Star Trek” captain William Shatner tells a tale. (Mat Hayward Photo / Future of Space)

William Shatner set a record as the oldest human in space at the age of 90 — but at the age of 94, he’s not that interested in taking another record-setting space trip.

“You know, I had such a meaningful experience,” he told me. “Maybe I tend to think of it like a love affair. You want to go back to that love affair? Maybe not. It was such a great moment.”

The original captain from “Star Trek” revisited that emotional moment from his Blue Origin suborbital spaceflight during a rollicking chat with celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at McCaw Hall in Seattle on June 18.

This week’s performance grew out of a meetup that the astronomer and the actor had last year during a space-themed Antarctic cruise. The two had such a good time that they worked with producers to organize an onstage follow-up.

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Blue Origin sends world travelers on brief space odyssey

Blue Origin New Shepard rocket ascending from launch pad
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship rises spaceward from its Texas launch pad, as seen from above. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Six well-traveled adventurers rode Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket ship to go where they’ve never gone before: the edge of space. The 10-minute mission lifted off from the Kent, Wash.-based company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 8:39 a.m. CT (6:39 a.m. PT) today.

This was Blue Origin’s 32nd New Shepard suborbital launch and its 12th crewed mission. New Shepard’s booster sent the crew capsule to a height of about 104 kilometers (64.4 miles, or 339,800 feet) — just beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude that marks the internationally accepted boundary of space.

After separation, the reusable booster descended to a landing pad under autonomous control. Meanwhile, the spacefliers experienced a few minutes of weightlessness and got an astronaut’s-eye view of Earth beneath a black sky. At the end of the ride, the capsule made a parachute-aided descent to the rangeland surrounding the launch site.

Since 2021, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has flown 64 suborbital space travelers, including “Star Trek” captain William Shatner and Bezos himself.  A previous New Shepard flight in April sent up an all-female crew including pop superstar Katy Perry, CBS morning-show host Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and journalist who is Bezos’ fiancée. That mission generated celebrity buzz as well as backlash.

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All-female mission sends stars and scientists to space

Blue Origin New Shepard launch
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket ship rises from its Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Six women rode Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship today on a short suborbital space trip that was notable because of a crew that included pop superstar Katy Perry, morning TV host Gayle King — and Lauren Sanchez, the fiancée of the space venture’s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos.

Liftoff from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas occurred on time at 8:30 a.m. CT (6:30 a.m. PT). Blue Origin streamed coverage of the nearly 11-minute mission via its website and YouTube.

The spacefliers marveled at the views, including a just-past-full moon that was hanging in a darkened sky. “Look at the moon,” one could be heard saying over an audio link. “Oh my God,” another replied.

After touchdown, both Perry and King knelt to kiss the ground. “What happened to us was not a ‘ride.’ This was a bona fide frickin’ flight.” King told an interviewer.

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Blue Origin wins a share of Space Force launch contracts

New Glenn rocket rises from launch pad
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket rises up from its Florida launch pad in January. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has been awarded $2.4 billion in the U.S. Space Force’s latest round of procurement for future national security launches.

“It’s an honor and huge responsibility to team with the U.S. government to launch our nation’s most important assets,” Jarrett Jones, Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Glenn, said today in a news release. “Through this partnership, we’re looking forward to delivering on a number of critical national security priorities.”

The newly announced round — which is known as National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 — also allotted $5.9 billion in contracts to SpaceX, and $5.4 billion to United Launch Alliance.

The launch contracts will cover about 54 missions, with contracts to be awarded between now and the end of fiscal year 2029. The launches themselves are expected to take place during a period running from fiscal year 2027 to 2032. SpaceX is expected to get 28 missions, ULA would get 19 missions, and Blue Origin would be awarded seven missions starting next year.

Blue Origin would use its New Glenn rocket, which had its first test launch in January and is due for its second launch by the middle of this year. For what it’s worth, New Glenn hasn’t yet been officially certified for national security launches, but the Space Force expects that to happen by next year. SpaceX would use its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, while ULA would use its Vulcan rocket.

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Museum adds a big Blue rocket engine to its collection

Blue Origin engineer polishing rocket engine nozzle
Timothy Hinerman, a program manager at Blue Origin, polishes up the nozzle of a BE-3U rocket engine. (Museum of Flight Photo / Ted Huetter)

Seattle’s Museum of Flight has brought its collection of space artifacts up to the present day, thanks to a rocket engine that’s been donated by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

The BE-3U rocket engine, which was used for on-the-ground development work that included hot-fire testing, was installed in the museum’s Charles Simonyi Space Gallery on Monday. Eventually, a 16-foot-tall model of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will take its place beside the engine.

Two BE-3U engines power the upper stage of the New Glenn orbital-class rocket, which was sent into orbit from the Kent, Wash.-based company’s Florida launch pad for the first time in January. That mission served to test not only the rocket, but also prototype components for Blue Origin’s Blue Ring spacecraft platform. The next New Glenn launch is expected in late spring.

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Blue Origin is on deck to send NASA payload to the moon

Illustration: Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander on the moon
An artist’s conception shows the Blue Moon MK1 lander on the moon. (Blue Origin Illustration)

NASA says it has penciled in Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK1 cargo lander to deliver a scientific payload to the moon’s south polar region as soon as this summer.

The uncrewed lander would rank as the largest spacecraft sent to the moon’s surface, and would set the stage for a larger crewed lander that would be used for moon missions in the 2030s. By that time, if all proceeds according to plan, SpaceX’s Starship would take over the top spot as the world’s most massive moon ship.

Blue Origin was created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2000 and is headquartered in Kent, Wash. For years, Bezos has voiced a strong interest in lunar exploration. “It’s time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay,” he declared in 2017.

NASA’s payload for Blue Origin’s first mission to the moon is a suite of cameras that’s designed to record how the blast from Blue Moon’s engines disturbs the dirt and rocks at the lunar landing site. The data from that experiment — known as Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies, or SCALPSS — would be factored into the preparations for crewed landings.

Similar payloads flew on Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander, which conducted a partially successful mission on the moon last year; and on Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost M1 lander, which landed on the moon earlier this month. The data from the Blue Moon mission would give NASA a better sense of what to expect when a heavier spacecraft touches down.

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Blue Origin’s next space trip will feature all-female crew

Six photos of Blue Origin crew: Lauren Sanchez, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen
Blue Origin’s NS-31 spacefliers include Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos’ fiancee; Gayle King, co-host of “CBS Mornings”; pop superstar Katy Perry; and Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen, three advocates for women in STEM. (Blue Origin Photos)

The next suborbital spaceflight planned by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is due to follow through on the dream of Bezos’ fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, to lead an all-woman crew — and that crew will include pop superstar Katy Perry and morning-TV host Gayle King.

Three advocates for women in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, will round out the six-person crew for a mission known as NS-31, Blue Origin announced today. The flight date hasn’t yet been announced, but the company says it will launch this spring.

“This will be the first all-female flight crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963,” Blue Origin said in a reference to the Soviet space pioneer.

Sanchez called her crewmates “fearless explorers” in a posting to Threads. “I really see this group as explorers, and storytellers, each of us about to be changed by a remarkable view of our beautiful planet,” she said. “The countdown starts now!”

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Blue Origin adds a bit of mystery to suborbital space trip

Blue Origin New Shepard booster descends to landing
The New Shepard booster descends to a landing at Launch Site One in West Texas. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture sent its 10th crew on a quick suborbital ride to space today, extending its list of spacefliers to more than 50. And that list now includes the first customer who preserved a bit of his privacy as he flew.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable rocket ship rose from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:49 a.m. CT (7:49 a.m. PT) for a flight that lasted just under 10 minutes and rose to an altitude of 105 kilometers, or 65 miles. That’s beyond the Karman Line, the 100-kilometer level that marks the internationally recognized boundary of space.

The six spacefliers included a Spanish TV host, a media entrepreneur, a fertility-clinic founder, a hedge-fund partner and a venture capitalist who made his second New Shepard flight. And the sixth crew member? Blue Origin said it was respecting that customer’s request for privacy by not releasing his full name. “I like to think that he simply requested he remained under the radar, but over the Karman Line,” launch commentator Isabella Gillespie said.

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Blue Origin puts a lunar spin on its suborbital spaceship

Blue Origin New Shepard booster comes in for a landing
Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard booster descends to a landing in Texas. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

For the first time, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has put its New Shepard suborbital rocket ship through a couple of minutes’ worth of moon-level gravity.

The uncrewed mission, known as NS-29, sent 30 research payloads on a 10-minute trip from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. For this trip, the crew capsule was spun up to 11 revolutions per minute, as opposed to the typical half-revolution per minute. The resulting centrifugal force was equivalent to one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, which is what would be felt on the moon.

The point of the exercise was to test how the payloads performed during the conditions they would face during future lunar missions — for example, how well they could process moon dirt to extract oxygen and other resources, or how well they could work to manufacture solar cells for Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist project.

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