Blue Origin carries the first Egyptian and Portuguese spacefliers on suborbital trip

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship rises from its Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture sent six more crew members on a suborbital space ride, including the first Egyptian and Portuguese citizens to reach the final frontier.

Thanks to today’s flight from Launch Site One in West Texas, Blue Origin’s list of spacefliers has grown to 31 over the course of a little more than a year. Bezos himself went on the first crewed flight in July 2021, and Florida investor Evan Dick bought two tickets to space.

The lineup for NS-22 — the 22nd mission for the New Shepard suborbital launch system, and the sixth crewed flight — set a couple of precedents.

Portugal’s first spaceflier is Mario Ferreira, an entrepreneur, investor and president of Porto-based Pluris Investments. The first from Egypt is Sara Sabry, a mechanical and biomedical engineer who founded a nonprofit called Deep Space Initiative. Sabry was the second Blue Origin crew member sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit that supports citizen astronauts.

Rounding out the “Titanium Feather” crew were Coby Cotton, a co-founder of the Dude Perfect sports/entertainment channel; Vanessa O’Brien, a British-American explorer and former banking executive; Clint Kelly III, who helped pioneer technologies for driverless cars; and Steve Young, former CEO of Young’s Communications LLC.

Cotton’s seat was sponsored by MoonDAO, a crypto-centric collective that aims to decentralize access to space. Although Blue Origin does not disclose how much its spacefliers pay for their flights, crypto sleuths estimated that MoonDAO devoted about $1.25 million to Cotton’s flight.

Today’s flight followed the routine established by the previous five crewed missions: Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship blasted off at 8:56 a.m. CT (6:56 a.m. PT), sending the crew capsule beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) Karman Line that marks the internationally accepted boundary of outer space. The maximum altitude was 351,232 feet (66.5 miles, or 107 kilometers) above mean sea level.

During the highest phase of the trajectory, the six spacefliers unhooked themselves from their seats for a few minutes to float in zero-G and look out at the curving Earth through the capsule’s picture windows. Crew members could be heard over a communications link exulting over the experience.

New Shepard’s booster makes an autonomous landing. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

New Shepard’s reusable booster made an autonomous landing on a pad near the launch site. Meanwhile, the crew capsule floated down separately to the Texas rangeland on the end of its parachutes. “We’re not gonna die!” Cotton said half-jokingly as the parachutes opened.

The flight took 10 minutes and 20 seconds from launch to touchdown.

Blue Origin’s NS-22 mission was part of a one-day launch trifecta also including Rocket Lab’s launch of a classified satellite mission for the National Reconnaissance Office and United Launch Alliance’s sendoff for a Space Force missile warning satellite. SpaceX could turn the trifecta into a quadfecta later today with the scheduled launch of a South Korean lunar probe.



from GeekWire https://ift.tt/Sn26V1A

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amazon to acquire Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7 billion

Image
(iRobot Photo) Amazon is set to make another major acquisition. The Seattle tech giant said Friday it will scoop up iRobot , the Boston-area company known for its Roomba vacuum, in a $1.7 billion deal. The news comes just two weeks after Amazon announced it will acquire primary care company One Medical for $3.9 billion. This would be Amazon’s fourth-largest acquisition ever, behind its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods, the $8.45 billion deal to buy MGM, and the One Medical acquisition. The iRobot deal signals Amazon’s large appetite for acquisitions amid the economic downturn and despite increasing U.S. antitrust scrutiny. Amazon will acquire iRobot for $61 per share, about a 22% premium from the company’s stock price at market close Thursday. Shares of iRobot were up nearly 20% in pre-market trading Friday. The deal marks Amazon’s latest investment in the smart home. The company is working on its own home robot, Astro , which debuted in September, and has an array of sm
Read more

This tech-fueled service will provide bus transportation for Seattle Public Schools

Image
Students using Zum transportation tap into rides using RFID-enabled passes. (Zum Photo) When Seattle Public Schools students return to the classroom in September, many of their families will be along for the ride — at least virtually. The district of more than 50,000 students has contracted with California tech startup Zum to provide half of its bus service. Using the Zum system, “all of the stakeholders are connected. There’s a full transparency and visibility at all times of where the children are,” said founder and CEO Ritu Narayen . “People used to say, I can track my pizza [delivery], but I have no idea where my children are once they are on the school bus. That issue is completely removed.” Parents get a Zum app to track their kids’ buses and drivers. Students tap an RFID-enabled pass when boarding vehicles to sign into the ride. Ritu Narayen, Zum CEO and founder. (Zum Photo) Narayen began working on the idea for Zum in 2015 after facing transportation challenges for h
Read more

The rise of high-tech real estate investing platforms and their effect on housing affordability

Image
An example of a multifamily housing in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. (Sightline Institute Photo / Creative Commons ) Real estate tech startups are making it easier for people to invest and manage property. But critics argue that these software companies and their business models are gobbling up the limited amount of available housing in the process, driving up costs and pushing out first-time buyers.  These investing services encourage users to invest in multiple properties, taking away already scarce housing inventory, said Tram Tran-Larson, a community engagement manager for the Housing Justice Project, a Seattle-based legal aid clinic that provides eviction defense for low income tenants and is part of the King County Bar Association. This drives up costs for available housing, she added. But researchers argue that the lack of affordable housing has more to do with the limited supply, not the proliferation of tech-enabled real estate investing platforms. Sheharyar Bokhari.
Read more