• 4 months ago
A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched the NS-25 mission from Texas.
Watch the crew enjoying zero-g and flight highlights.

According to Space.com, the Six people aboard were Ed Dwight, the U.S.'s first-ever Black astronaut candidate; venture capitalist Mason Angel; Sylvain Chiron, the founder of French craft brewery Brasserie Mont Blanc; entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess; retired accountant Carol Schaller; and pilot and aviator Gopi Thotakura.

Credit: Blue Origin
Transcript
00:00All right, let's do this!
00:04Look at that!
00:08All of our cars!
00:12Oh my god!
00:16Look at the earth!
00:20Oh man!
00:24Oh my god!
00:28Insane!
00:32All right, here's for you!
00:36Camera appears!
00:40Dude, look at the earth! Just look outside!
00:44There's so much space!
00:48India with pride!
00:52India the space!
00:56Hell yeah!
01:008, 7, 6, 5,
01:044, command engine start, 2, 1,
01:080, ignition, start.
01:12And liftoff!
01:16Liftoff!
01:20Yeah!
01:24New Shepard has cleared the tower!
01:28The rocket and our astronauts are heading up to space!
01:32Now you can follow along on the bottom left of your
01:36screen, the altimeter on the left,
01:40excuse me, the altimeter on the right, and the speedometer on the left.
01:4810,000 feet.
01:5210,000 feet.
01:5610,000 feet.
02:0010,000 feet.
02:04All right, as we go through this flight, there are a couple of milestones here.
02:08The first one will be max Q, that's when the dynamic
02:12pressures are the highest on the vehicle.
02:16We go from 100% power, pull it back a little bit as we go through
02:20max Q, and then ramp her back up to 100%.
02:24Woo!
02:28Okay, maximum pressure.
02:3650,000 feet.
02:40Woo!
02:44Wow!
02:48Max Q
02:52has been confirmed. Again, thank you everybody
02:56for joining us for New Shepard's 25th mission to space.
03:00So far in nominal flight, we have gone through
03:04max Q. 100,000 feet.
03:08And the vehicle will continue to climb under full power of the BE-3
03:12engine. The next milestone
03:16will be main engine cutoff. You will know
03:20when that happens when you see the glow of the engine at the base of the rocket
03:24go dim.
03:32There we go.
03:36Main engine cutoff confirmed.
03:40200,000 feet.
03:44Now with the main engine cutoff,
03:48with the BE-3 engine turned off,
03:52the vehicle continues to climb up towards its
03:56apogee, but as you will see on the left side, the speedometer will come down
04:00and once that speedometer hits zero, that's when you know exactly that
04:04the vehicle has hit apogee, its
04:08highest altitude in the flight of the vehicle.
04:12Now I understand that
04:16separation of the capsule from the booster has been confirmed.
04:20All right, let's do this.
04:24All aboard first!
04:28Oh my God!
04:32Oh my God!
04:36Look at the Earth!
04:40Oh man! Oh my God!
04:44This is like insane!
04:48Okay, I got a few things to do.
04:52All right, camera appears!
04:56Dude, look at the Earth!
05:00Just look outside!
05:04That is happy, but
05:08India with pride.
05:12India to space!
05:28All right, you see the booster that is headed
05:32down. You see the drag fins, the drag brakes
05:36that have just deployed. Those cut the speed of the booster
05:40in half. Also at the top of the rocket there, you
05:44see the forward fins. They kind of look like pie slices,
05:48one on each quadrant. That helps keep the vehicle stable.
05:52And there we go, BE-3 engine relight.
06:00Landing gear deployed.
06:0650 feet, 8 feet per second.
06:10Touchdown.
06:14And touchdown! Welcome home, New Shepard!
06:18What a beautiful flight
06:22to space and back for that booster.
06:26But the show is not over. The crew capsule
06:30has deployed its guide parachutes
06:34and its mains.
06:38Everything looking nominal on today's flight.
06:46Looks like we do have two parachutes that have full inflation.
06:50The third is not quite fully inflated. But actually,
06:54Jackie, this is
06:58part of the design. In fact, we were talking about
07:02webcasts. The first webcast that we did, we actually tested a
07:06shootout. There are multiple redundant factors
07:10in this system. And so
07:14landing with two parachutes is perfectly okay for this
07:18system. You'll also see the dust take out of the base of the
07:22capsule as she comes in to land. That
07:26is the air cushioning system. It's going to kick up a lot of that West Texas dust you just
07:30talked about. But also, there it is. Touchdown of the crew
07:34capsule. A beautiful
07:38flight for our rocket, for our crew capsule,
07:42for our six new astronauts, Mason,
07:46Sylvain, Ken, Carol, Gopi, and Ed.
07:50You are officially astronauts. Welcome home, everybody.
07:54music
07:58music

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