Showing posts with label Blue Origin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Origin. Show all posts

20 May, 2023

NASA selects Blue Origin for manned mission to the moon


The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has awarded a NextSTEP-2 Appendix P Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) contract to Blue Origin. 

Blue Origin’s National Team partners include Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.

Under this contract, Blue Origin and its National Team partners will develop and fly both a lunar lander that can make a precision landing anywhere on the Moon’s surface and a cislunar transporter. These vehicles are powered by LOX-LH2. The high-specific impulse of LOX-LH2 provides a dramatic advantage for high-energy deep space missions. Nevertheless, lower performing but more easily storable propellants (such as hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as used on the Apollo lunar landers) have been favoured for these missions because of the problematic boil-off of LOX-LH2 during their long mission timelines. 

Through this contract, we will move the state of the art forward by making high-performance LOX-LH2 a storable propellant combination. Under SLD, we will develop and fly solar-powered 20-degree Kelvin cryocoolers and the other technologies required to prevent LOX-LH2 boil-off. Future missions beyond the Moon, and enabling capabilities such as high-performance nuclear thermal propulsion, will benefit greatly from storable LH2. Blue Origin’s architecture also prepares for that future day when lunar ice can be used to manufacture LOX and LH2 propellants on the Moon.

Blue Origin and its partners are already at work and are excited to be on this journey with NASA.

14 October, 2021

"You're looking into blackness, into black ugliness - And you look down, there's the blue down there - and the black up there - and it's just, there is Mother Earth." William Shatner marvels on his trip to the edge of space - the final frontier.

Getting his astronaut wings!
Perhaps most famous for being a starship captain, actor William Shatner has finally made it into space at the age of 90, the oldest person to blast off to space aboard a rocketship.   

Mr Shatner was one of four passengers on the journey to the edge of space for 10 minutes and 17 seconds aboard the white fully autonomous 60-foot-tall New Shepard spacecraft from Blue Origin. 

The capsule returned to the Texas desert from the suborbital flight under parachutes, kicking up a cloud of dust in what must have been a textbook landing. The veteran actor emerged a little gingerly and appeared to be in a deeply reflective mood following the experience. "What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine," he told Blue Origin's owner Jeff Bezos who was on hand to welcome the intrepid adventurers back to solid ground. "I am so filled with emotion about what just happened," Shatner said.

"I hope I never recover from this, I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it."

"You're looking into blackness, into black ugliness," Shatner said. "And you look down, there's the blue down there - and the black up there - and it's just, there is Mother Earth."

"This is life and that's death, and in an instant, you know - whoa - that's death," Shatner said. "That's what I saw."

The all-civilian crew experienced a few minutes of weightlessness, having travelled about 65.8 miles above the Earth's surface - higher than the internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Karman Line. 

"What was once the final frontier, is now the latest top tourist attraction for those with deep enough pockets to afford the trip, or have very rich friends to offer the opportunity for free. We have gone past the birth of space tourism, we have entered its infancy, the developments will now come thick and fast as this baby grows.  But, let's just hope that while it becomes more and more popular and available, going up to space doesn't diminish the after-effects of what an extraordinary trip it is, as demonstrated so well by Mr Shatner. While his fellow crewmembers were popping champagne corks and whooping for joy, he was marvelling at and contemplating the wonderful experience." Air101 editor Jason Shaw said. 

Watch the replay of the live stream below. 

05 October, 2021

To seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before......... Captain Kirk to venture into space next week.....

William Shatner (left; photo: Gary Marschka) and Audrey Powers (right)

Jeff Bezos's space travel company Blue Origin has confirmed that Captain James T Kirk will be blasting off into space next week.  Veteran actor William Shatner who is 90 years young will take his first journey into space on 12th October decades after the makers of Star Trek sent him to 'seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before'.

William Shatner’s career as an actor, director, producer, writer and recording artist has spanned 60 years. He originated the role of “Captain James T. Kirk” in 1966 for the television series Star Trek. The series spawned a feature film franchise where Shatner returned as Captain Kirk in seven of the Star Trek movies, one of which he directed. He has long wanted to travel to space and will become the oldest person to have flown to space.

Shatner is currently the host and executive producer of The UnXplained on The History Channel. From the producers of Ancient Aliens and The Curse of Oak Island, the one-hour, non-fiction series explores the world’s most fascinating, strange and inexplicable mysteries.
Photo Blue Origin 


“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle” said William Shatner.

Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Mission & Flight Operations, will fly onboard New Shepard NS-18. They will join crewmates Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries for the flight which lifts off from Launch Site One on October 12.

"I’m so proud and humbled to fly on behalf of Team Blue, and I’m excited to continue writing Blue’s human spaceflight history,” said Audrey Powers. “I was part of the amazing effort we assembled for New Shepard’s Human Flight Certification Review, a years-long initiative completed in July 2021. As an engineer and lawyer with more than two decades of experience in the aerospace industry, I have great confidence in our New Shepard team and the vehicle we’ve developed."
Photo Blue Origin 


Live launch coverage begins on BlueOrigin.com at T-90 minutes. Liftoff is currently targeted for 8:30 am CDT / 13:30 UTC from Launch Site One in West Texas.

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