Commercial And NASA-Supported Payloads On Board

Blue Origin reveals the successful completion of the 17th New Shepard mission to space and back, which is the 8th flight for this vehicle.

The August 26th flight held payloads from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program along with a second flight of the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration under a NASA Tipping Point partnership The DDL demo flew on the New Shepard booster for the second time, testing the technology that will ensure high-accuracy landing for future Moon missions.

“After flying more than 100 payloads to space on New Shepard, today’s 8th flight of this vehicle carried NASA-sponsored and commercial experiments, including the second flight of NASA’s lunar landing technology that will one day allow us to further explore the Moon’s surface,” said Bob Smith, CEO, Blue Origin. “We are grateful to NASA for partnering with us once again on this experiment, and we are proud of the Blue Origin team for executing a great flight in support of all our customers.”  

Other notable payloads included a second flight for the OSCAR Trash-To-Gas payload, a system that processes trash into useful gas. U of Florida flew its third “Biological Imaging in Support of Suborbital Science" experiment which is testing data for biological experiments and flying an art installation by Amoaka Boafo which is painted on the crew capsule.

The crew capsule reached an apogee of 343,787 ft above ground level, while the booster reached an apogee of 343,385 ft. THe mission time was ten minutes and fifteen seconds with a max ascent velocity of 2,232 mph. 

FMI: www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard