Sky's no limit for Blue Origin. The highly popular spaceflight company belonging to the billionaire Jeff Bezos, an Amazon founder, was supposed to perform an in-flight escape test of the New Shepard suborbital space vehicle.
The New Shepard is, in fact, a reusable set of a rocket and a capsule. The test will require the capsule to fire the escape motor for two seconds at about 16,000 feet after launch, shooting hundreds of meters away from the rocket. The practical purpose of this critical test is to prove that, given the situation, a real-life emergency which may occur will be handled properly without causing any harm.
However, the test is going to be delayed due to the poor weather conditions. The flight is postponed until Wednesday, Oct. 5.
Weather no-go for tomorrow’s New Shepard #InFlightEscape test. Webcast now Wednesday 10:45 am ET. #GradatimFerociter
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 3, 2016
Aside from the company's New Shepard project aiming to take passengers and payloads on short flights in the suborbital space, the ambitious team of Blue Origin is currently working on another fascinating project, New Glenn. The etymology of these projects is no less spectacular, Alan Shepard being the first American in space, while John Glenn was the fist American who orbited the Earth.
While New Shepard can only get to the suborbital space, New Glenn is designed to explore further away into lower Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond. Should New Glenn achieve its purpose, it would not only constitute a huge game-changer for the company, but it would also help it reach a new stratum in the space industry.
The focus, howver, falls on New Shepard's test for the moment. As it seems, Bezos finds it as an amazing opportunity to prove the company's seriousness when it comes to security matters.
"It promises to be an exciting demonstration," said Bezos. The crew will perform the space travel in the capsule that is attached to the rocket. While the capsule will not carry more than six people at a time, the company expressed its interest in seeing how the project will perform under special conditions that could be a serious threat to the passengers.
In order to prove that — however original and ambitious the plans — safety comes first, the parachutes will stress the new capsule and the parachutes will be designed to fail on purpose. The test will be performed on Karman line, the 62 miles boundary above the Earth marking the "border" with space. Nonetheless, the limit will not be exceeded and the test will not be performed into orbit. The odds of performing the test in good conditions are high, as the New Shepard has already landed successfully three times.
