
IPFS News Link • Space Travel and Exploration
Blue Origin reveals first commercial payloads
• https://newatlas.com, David SzondyThe payloads, which ranged from artworks to medical experiments, were lofted into space at an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) during the 11 minute flight where they were subjected to three minutes of free fall.
On December 12 at 10:59 CST, the reusable New Shepard booster lifted off from the Blue Origin test site in West Texas. During the flight it reached a maximum ascent velocity of Mach 2.94 (2,000 mph, 3,200 km/h) and a maximum descent velocity of Mach 3.74 (2,847 mph, 4.582 km/h) on the way back to Earth.
Though unmanned, the prototype Crew Capsule 2.0 had a "passenger" in the form of "Mannequin Skywalker," an instrument-laden test dummy designed to return flight telemetry. But Blue Origin is also trying to promote the launch system as a platform for suborbital research that can be launched multiple times at low cost for repeat experiments.