Blue Origin NS-26 Mission Tourist Flight Ended Successfully

Blue Origin has successfully launched and landed the New Shepard NS-26 mission. It is the eighth suborbital space tourism mission of Jeff Bezos’ company.

NS-26 Mission Successfully Launched

Updated on 29th August

On Thursday, 29 August, Blue Origin’s highly anticipated crewed NS-26 mission successfully lifted off from the West Texas launch site.

This marks another milestone in commercial space tourism and research. The New Shepard booster has landed successfully. In about 30 minutes, the capsule landed and the tourists came back to Earth. The flight reached a maximum altitude of around 341,000 feet (104,000 meters) before coming back for a touchdown in the West Texas.

Overall the space flight lasted for about 10 minutes.

This is New Shepard’s first flight since the NS-25 mission on 19 May. Although the mission was successful, one of the three parachutes used by the crew during descent failed to deploy fully.

Launch Date Of Blue Origin’s Next Space Tourism Flight

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is targeting Thursday 29 August for NS-26 launch. It’s the latest suborbital space tourism mission.

The reusable New Shepard rocket is scheduled to lift off from the West Texas site at 1300 GMT (9 a.m. EDT).

You’ll be able to watch the action live: Blue Origin will livestream the launch, beginning at 1220 GMT (8:20 a.m. EDT).

The selected crew members are Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen, and Ephraim Rabin. 

One notable highlight of this mission is that Karsen Kitchen is set to become the youngest woman to cross the Kármán line.

Pioneering Experiments in Space

Rob Ferl will become the first NASA-funded researcher to perform an experiment during a commercial suborbital flight. His research focuses on understanding how plant genes respond to the conditions of microgravity. 

During the mission, Ferl will use a Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tube (KFT) to “fix” or capture a snapshot of the gene activity in an Arabidopsis thaliana plant. This procedure will allow scientists to analyze the plant’s genetic responses later in a laboratory setting.

Coordinated Efforts with Ground Control

To ensure the experiment’s success, co-investigator Anna-Lisa Paul will be monitoring Ferl’s activities from the ground. 

She will activate identical control KFTs at the same intervals during the flight, mirroring Ferl’s actions. This coordinated effort will provide a thorough analysis of the plant’s genetic response to the microgravity environment encountered during the mission.