Blue Origin plans to place a concentrate on the event of its human lunar capabilities, so it received’t be sending vacationers to area for no less than the following two years. Meaning we received’t be seeing any New Shepard launches for fairly a while. Blue Origin is likely one of the corporations NASA selected to develop human touchdown techniques for its Artemis program, together with SpaceX. Particularly, it can work on landers for the Artemis III and Artemis V missions.
The corporate was initially contracted to construct the human touchdown system that might switch astronauts from NASA’s Gateway station to the moon’s South Pole area for the Artemis V mission. However final yr, NASA requested Blue Origin to design an alternate lander for Artemis III after SpaceX skilled delays attributable to Starship’s failed exams. Artemis III is anticipated to be the primary crewed moon touchdown mission of this system, and the Trump administration needs it to occur earlier than the top of the president’s time period.
New Shepard takes vacationers to suborbital area, the place they expertise a couple of minutes of weightlessness earlier than the spacecraft makes its means again to Earth. Jeff Bezos was one of many passengers on New Shepard’s first vacationer flight again in 2021. Since then, it has flown and landed 37 extra occasions and carried 98 passengers to the Karman line, together with Katy Perry and William Shatner.
