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Blue Origin has announced the upcoming 29th mission of its New Shephard suborbital vehicle.
NS-29 will simulate the moon’s gravity and fly 30 payloads, with all but one of those testing lunar-related technologies. The New Shepard crew capsule will deploy its Reaction Control System (RCS) to spin up to 11 revolutions per minute.
The New Shepard launch is scheduled for Tuesday, January 28 at 11 am EST / 10 am local time at Blue Origin’s Test Site One, near Van Horn in Texas.
The company owned by Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos will livestream the event, with the broadcast commencing 15 minutes before the launch.
“The payloads will experience at least two minutes of lunar gravity forces, a first for New Shepard and made possible in part through support from NASA,” said the mission description.
“The flight will test six broad lunar technology areas: in-situ resource utilization, dust mitigation, advanced habitation systems, sensors and instrumentation, small spacecraft technologies, and entry, descent and landing.”
New Shepard’s next uncrewed mission, NS-29, is targeting liftoff on Tuesday, Jan. 28! This time, we’re simulating the Moon’s gravity in our capsule. Our launch window opens at 10 a.m. CST (1600 UTC), with the webcast starting 15 minutes before liftoff. Learn more:… pic.twitter.com/TyUBb8ArGC
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) January 24, 2025
Significant continued support from NASA
New Shepard’s 29th flight brings the total number of commercial payloads carried to more than 175 and on this occasion, 29 of the 30 payloads will be positioned inside the crew capsule with the other one attached to the booster, for exposure to the external environment.
Further support has been provided by NASA for more than half of the payloads, with four covered by Honeybee Robotics, a subsidiary division within Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems entity.
New Shepard takes its name from Alan Shepard, the second person and first American to enter space, as part of the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission in 1961.
To date, nine of New Shepard’s 28 flights have been crewed, with the most recent mission taking Emily Calandrelli and five others into suborbital space on Nov. 22.
Image credit: Via Midjourney
