Meghana KandraTwo days before the historic flight on 20th July, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin will be briefing about their launch and mission on 18th July at 9:30 PM IST. Watch live at Blue Origin and look out for the latest updates on first-ever suborbital spaceflight with unpiloted at Tech Story.
Image credits- Blue Origin
The most awaited spaceflight, Blue Origin’s New Shepard first Human flight is on July 20th. Beating Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeffo Bezos’s rocket will be the first spaceflight to send civilians to space without a pilot.
The pre-launch briefing is to take place on the 18th. Below is the YouTube video of the launch. As per the website, the participants in the pre-launch event are
- Bob Smith, Chief Executive Officer
- Steve Lanius, Lead Flight Director
- Audrey Powers, Vice President, New Shepard Operations
- Chris Jaeger, Chief Engineer, New Shepard
- Ariane Cornell, Director of Astronaut Sales
The pre-launch briefing starts with the lead flight director, Steve Lanius giving brief info regarding the launch and the astronaut training that is currently going on.
Ariane Cornell, Director of Astronaut Sales talks about the experience and the training which astronauts are taking. She mentions that New Shepard will be reaching the Karman line which is 100km away from the earth’s surface. Further talks about Blue Shepard’s upcoming customers being interested and already booked upcoming flights. They will also continue to launch payload missions too. So far they have had 9 payload launches which are from NASA, citizens from different parts of the world, and also some school kids. The launch will be most memorable to everyone, from the Blue Origin team to the paying customers who will be experiencing space.
Questioning session
Bob Smith first answers the first question on the price of the early tickets to fly to space. He points out that the early flight is in demand, as seen in the live auction. Then Smith answers the question on the insurance plan, saying they have third-party liability insurance if there is any incident then they can cover that.
The next question is on how many times the capsule was flown. Smith answers that the crew capsule was flown two times and it was successful, reusable, and reliable. And then mentions that the next flight will be by the end of September and October start.
Furthermore, the third question from a viewer is on the millions of dollars benefiting the local economy. Audrey Powers answers this question. She says Blue Origin certainly supports local organizations and the launch site uses local infrastructure. As they expand they have more plans to include. There are test facilities, lander platforms and they are working on expanding further in the aspect of creating jobs, giving contrast, and many more.
An interesting question regarding those who are flying on the 20th. Ariane Cornell answers this question, says that all of them met before 48 hours or so in the astronaut village. In two days the crew gets trained everything related to the launch. The capsule has a total of 6 seats, and 4 being civilians, the other members will include the trainer.
Finally the questioning session continues with Blue Origin’s team answering on details about the crew and the ticket costs.
Blue Origin’s excited customers
With this launch, Blue Origin’s rocket New Shepard will fly 16th time to space. As the test flight was a success in earlier launches, the human flight was scheduled. The pre-launch mission briefing will include the crew members who will be going to space on the launch day. Four people would be on the rocket, which includes Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos. The other two crew are the 82-year-old, Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen. New Shepard’s first human fight will include both the oldest human to travel to space, and the youngest human to travel to space.
Video from Instagram posted by Jeff Bezos
As seen in the video posted by Jeff Bezos, the crew is excited about the launch. They are all currently being trained briefly for the upcoming launch which will end tomorrow.
Not just one or two records, this spaceflight will be forever noted in history for breaking multiple records. The New Shepard is an autonomous rocket that will be launched into suborbital space 100km away from earth.