WASHINGTON — Blue Origin carried out the first flight of a new model of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle Oct. 23, a mission the company called “nominal and on target” despite going to a slightly lower altitude than past flights.
The uncrewed NS-27 mission lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 11:26 a.m. Eastern. The company had scrubbed an initial launch attempt Oct. 7 for unspecified technical issues that could not be resolved before the launch window closed, and Blue Origin called off a second attempt Oct. 13 “to troubleshoot a GPS issue.”
Unlike past New Shepard flights, the company did not publicly release statistics about the flight, including peak altitude and speed. The webcast of the flight followed the booster, not the capsule, after separation, showing it appear to reach a peak altitude of about 101.2 kilometers above ground level, or 102.3 kilometers above mean sea level. By comparison, on the previous New Shepard flight, NS-26 on Aug. 29, the booster reached a peak altitude of 105.3 kilometers above sea level.
Blue Origin, in response to a SpaceNews inquiry, confirmed late Oct. 23 that the booster reached a peak altitude of 102.3 kilometers above sea level while the capsule flew to an apogee of 102.4 kilometers. On NS-26, the capsule went to 105.4 kilometers. Previous New Shepard flights, both crewed and uncrewed, have typically flown to altitudes of between 105 and 107 kilometers above sea level.
The company didn’t explain the lower altitude of the flight. “Flight performance was nominal and on target for this shakeout mission,” a company spokesperson told SpaceNews.
A review of video of the NS-26 and NS-27 missions appears to show that engine shutdown on NS-27 took place about two seconds earlier than the previous flight. NS-26 had a maximum ascent speed at engine shutdown of 3,602 kilometers per hour while NS-27’s maximum ascent speed was 3,473 kilometers per hour, according to data…
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