Photo: Blue Origin
None of the previous three crewed flights Blue Origin sent to orbit until now seem to have been as plagued by delays and other mishaps as the NS-20.
NS-20 is the fourth flight of a crew inside the New Shepard spacecraft (and the first this year) and was initially set to take place on March 23. For various reasons, the launch was then pushed to March 29.
That would be today, at the time of writing, but don’t look up searching for the phallic-shaped machine just yet, ‘cause you won’t see it. The launch has been postponed once again, pushed by “forecasted high winds" to March 31.
Other than that, the hardware is all fine and ready, with the Blue Origin team confirming “the vehicle has met all mission requirements for flight” and “astronauts are completing their training.”
Speaking of astronauts, NS-20 will take on a very short and expensive trip to kind-of-space a crew of six. They are, in no particular order, angel investor Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle plus her better half, Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle, explorer Jim Kitchen, Commercial Space Technologies president, George Nield, and New Shepard’s own system architect, Gary Lai.
Lai is a last-minute addition to the crew, having taken the spot left empty by the exit of Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson. The comedian was supposed to be the star of this select team, but for reasons that have not been disclosed to this day (they probably have to do with Blue Origin moving the launch to a date when Davidson was not available), he was taken off the manifest.
As with all previous Blue Origin flights, this one too will last about ten minutes, taking the humans inside the capsule to an altitude of about 63 miles (roughly 100 km) for a very brief zero-g experience.
That would be today, at the time of writing, but don’t look up searching for the phallic-shaped machine just yet, ‘cause you won’t see it. The launch has been postponed once again, pushed by “forecasted high winds" to March 31.
Other than that, the hardware is all fine and ready, with the Blue Origin team confirming “the vehicle has met all mission requirements for flight” and “astronauts are completing their training.”
Speaking of astronauts, NS-20 will take on a very short and expensive trip to kind-of-space a crew of six. They are, in no particular order, angel investor Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle plus her better half, Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle, explorer Jim Kitchen, Commercial Space Technologies president, George Nield, and New Shepard’s own system architect, Gary Lai.
Lai is a last-minute addition to the crew, having taken the spot left empty by the exit of Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson. The comedian was supposed to be the star of this select team, but for reasons that have not been disclosed to this day (they probably have to do with Blue Origin moving the launch to a date when Davidson was not available), he was taken off the manifest.
As with all previous Blue Origin flights, this one too will last about ten minutes, taking the humans inside the capsule to an altitude of about 63 miles (roughly 100 km) for a very brief zero-g experience.
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