New Shepard Successfully Completes Lunar Gravity Test
Feb 20, 2025
On Feb. 4, Blue Origin made a major leap forward for space research and exploration by successfully launching its New Shepard suborbital vehicle, an important step in simulating lunar gravity conditions during flight. The launch occurred at the company’s Launch Site One facility in West Texas, and the vehicle reached a height of 105 kilometers above sea level. The mission was extremely precise: the capsule landed about ten minutes after liftoff, while the booster performed an automated powered landing two and a half minutes earlier.
The mission patch for NS-29. Credit: Blue Origin
The launch also ran into initial difficulties as the company had already delayed the mission by a week because of weather and technical problems. Later, Blue Origin explained that an avionics issue prevented proper command verification, which required the delay. This approach was one that the company has consistently taken to safety and technical excellence and resolved before launch. A revolutionary feature that distinguished the NS-29 mission from previous launches was that the capsule itself performed a controlled spin after separating from the booster. Finally, the reaction control thrusters were programmed to rotate the capsule at 11 revolutions per minute, and for approximately two minutes, lunar gravity conditions were created. Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Shepard Phil Joyce pointed out that this unique capability would allow researchers to efficiently and cost effectively test lunar technologies and rapidly iterate in compressed timeframes.
An impressive payload of 29 experiments was carried, 17 of which were provided by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program that had been so critical to the development of the lunar gravity simulation capability. The topics of these experiments included in situ resource utilization, dust mitigation, advanced habitation systems, sensors and instrumentation, small spacecraft technologies, and entry, descent and landing systems. The breadth of these experiments showed that Blue Origin was equally dedicated to pursuing multiple aspects of space exploration at the same time. The descent phase of the mission was also complicated by a minor problem when one of the three parachutes failed to inflate initially but did so shortly thereafter before landing. The company was testing a new parachute design, and the capsule had been shown to land safely using only two parachutes in a flight last May.
A parallel development that further cemented Blue Origin’s momentum was its announcement of its crew for the upcoming NS-30 mission. Lane Bess is making his second New Shepard flight, along with Jesús Calleja, Elaine Chia Hyde, Dr. Richard Scott, Tushar Shah, and a sixth member who has not been disclosed. This is the 10th human flight for the program and the 30th overall launch for the program, which has successfully taken 47 people beyond the Kármán line into space. Together, this represents Blue Origin’s progress in advancing space exploration capabilities from pioneering research to providing human space travel accessibility. The company’s multifaceted and pioneering approach to playing a vital and transformative part in humanity’s space exploration efforts is demonstrated by its successful combination of technical innovation, research capabilities, and commercial space flight operations today.
