Blue Origin to debut 2nd human-rated New Shepard rocket on Oct. 7 launch (photo)

[Admin]

Blue Origin will debut its second human-rated New Shepard vehicle on an uncrewed launch Monday morning (Oct. 7), if all goes according to plan.

Blue Origin to debut 2nd human-rated New Shepard rocket on Oct. 7 launch (photo) : Read more

 

[Meteoric Marmot]

No comments here -- as appropriate. Blue Origin continues to be successful at failing while SpaceX leaves them enveloped in a cloud of rocket exhaust.

 

[Philly]

BO, is the only aerospace company that makes Boeing feel good about themselves, and they can still laugh at.

The 1st launch of New Shepard was in 2015 and they are still struggling to get it operational. 25 years and billions spent, yet BO still can't put a single Kg into LEO, talk about an epic business failure and a failure by every other reasonable measurable objective.

 

[billslugg]

"Blue Origin's cost to orbit will be lower compared to typical launchers that are not reusable." - Finty dot com

I guess that optimistic viewpoint just got some cold water poured on it, since Musk will now put the entire mass to orbit industry out of business.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Well, the Blue Origin "New Glenn" rocket is designed to have a reusable first stage, and there is work to make the second stage reusable, too. But, timewise, it is far behind SpaceX Falcon 9. And, it does not have the payload capacity of SpaceX StarShip.

Still, it may have a niche if they can get it going. And, it would be nice to have some redundancy and competition in the launch business.

I just finished reading the article about the Europa mission originally intending to use NASA's SLS for its launch, but not having the option because NASA does not have that vehicle ready, anyway. So, second choices sometimes become next choices when plans don't work out as expected.

 

[Rob77]

From the article....
"Those eight crewed flights have all used the same New Shepard vehicle — the Booster 4/RSS First Step combo. This second human-rated spacecraft will enable "expanded flight capacity to better meet growing customer demand," the company wrote in today's statement.

What is this expanded flight capacity? More crew? Added test instruments?
I cant remember where I read it but is this new iteration suppose to fly higher than the current 100km limit?