Blue Origin to Resume Manned Spaceflight with NS-25 Mission

TapTechNews May 17th news, the American space exploration company Blue Origin has ended its two-year hiatus in manned spaceflights and will carry out the seventh space tourism mission, code-named NS-25, this weekend. This mission will carry six passengers and take off from West Texas aboard the New Shepard rocket and its capsule combination to start the space journey.

The list of these six passengers was announced last month, including retired US Air Force Captain Ed Dwight, who is the first African American to be selected as an astronaut candidate in history but failed to carry out a spaceflight mission officially in 1961.

Blue Origin was founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. The company announced earlier this week that the launch time is targeted for 9:30 am Eastern Time on Sunday (May 19) in the US (TapTechNews note: 21:30 on May 19 in Beijing time).

The last time Blue Origin carried out a space tourism mission dates back to August 2022. That mission was similar to the upcoming NS-25 mission, both being suborbital flights and achieving complete success, and the New Shepard rocket and the manned capsule both returned to the ground safely.

However, in another New Shepard no-passenger scientific research mission carried out by Blue Origin in September 2022, a malfunction occurred, and the cause of the accident was a problem with the nozzle structure of the rocket's BE-3PM engine. Although the capsule used in this mission landed successfully, the New Shepard rocket exploded. After the accident, Blue Origin suspended the flight of the New Shepard and conducted a comprehensive investigation.

After more than a year of grounded整改, the New Shepard successfully carried out another unmanned payload flight mission in the NS-24 mission in December 2023. This weekend, the six passengers of the NS-25 mission will be the first people to board this vehicle since the accident of the New Shepard nearly two years ago.