New Shepard (reusable rocket)

2020: Blue Origin launched the reusable New Shepard missile in suborbital flight

On October 13, 2020 the Blue Origin company of Jeff Bezos launched in suborbital flight the reusable New Shepard missile for testing of components of future lunar landing system.

The rocket started with a polygon in the State of Texas. Duration of flight was 10 minutes 9 seconds, and maximum speed — 3592 km/h. The rocket with the cargo capsule rose by 106 km where the returned step undocked and returned on the earth separately from the capsule.

12 elements of payload from which the demonstration model of a system of lunar landing was the most important went to flight (Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration). The device was fixed outside of a rocket, it was started according to the NASA Tipping Point program which should stimulate development of key space technologies by private companies.

Jeff Bezos's company launched a missile for check of a system of moonfall

A system includes a lidar which determines the speed and provision of the spacecraft for landing in the right place by laser beams.

Successful testing of a system of high-precision landing will allow to conduct long researches of the Moon and also future flights to Mars.

The New Shepard rocket is intended only for suborbital flights. The ship is used for check of technologies of the lunar program of NASA Artemida. In 2020 the space agency of the USA selected Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics private contractors for sending loads and people to the Moon.

It is already the seventh start of this rocket and the 13th within the New Shepard project. The previous successful flight of a rocket took place on December 11, 2019.

The 7th start was postponed since the end of September, 2020 when power failure prevented to send the ship to flight. People onboard were not, but it was not without payload. These are, for example, the new systems of protection of electronics of the spaceship against overheating and the system of cultivation of plants in the conditions of a microgravity.^[1]

Space

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