Update on Opportunities for Research

Blue Origin has selected three unmanned research payloads to fly on the New Shepard suborbital vehicle as a part of Phase 1 of the New Shepard Research Flight Demonstration Program. These payloads were selected from an excellent field of submitted proposals.

The three investigations selected are:

• Three-Dimensional Critical Wetting Experiment in Microgravity. The principal investigator of this effort is Dr. Steven Collicott, of Purdue University.


• Microgravity Experiment on Dust Environments in Astrophysics (MEDEA). The principal investigator of this effort is Dr. Joshua Colwell, of the University of Central Florida.


• Effective lnterfacial Tension lnduced Convection (EITIC). The principal investigator of this effort is Dr. John Pojman, of Louisiana State University.

These flights are planned to begin in the coming years to demonstrate the integration and operation of scientific experiments into the New Shepard system.

More information on Blue Origin, the New Shepard program, and its research and education applications can be found at www.blueorigin.com. Further inquiries should be directed to Dr. Alan Stern, Blue Origin’s advisor for Research and Education Mission applications: astern@blueorigin.com.

Opportunities for Research

Program Overview

Blue Origin is developing New Shepard, a rocket-propelled vehicle designed to routinely fly multiple astronauts into suborbital space at competitive prices. In addition to providing the public with opportunities to experience spaceflight, New Shepard will also provide frequent opportunities for researchers to fly experiments into space and a microgravity environment.

Mission

The New Shepard vehicle will consist of a pressurized Crew Capsule (CC) carrying experiments and astronauts atop a reliable Propulsion Module (PM). Flights will take place from Blue Origin's own launch site, which is already operating in West Texas. New Shepard will take-off vertically and accelerate for approximately two and a half minutes before shutting off its rocket engines and coasting into space. The vehicle will carry rocket motors enabling the Crew Capsule to escape from the PM in the event of a serious anomaly during launch. In space, the Crew Capsule will separate from the PM and the two will reenter and land separately for re-use. The Crew Capsule will land softly under a parachute at the launch site. Astronauts and experiments will experience no more than 6 g acceleration into their seats and a 1.5 g lateral acceleration during a typical flight. High-quality microgravity environments (<10-3 g) will be achieved for durations of 3 or more minutes, depending on the mission trajectory.

Experiment Accommodations

Blue Origin is soliciting input from investigators to help design research astronaut and experiment accommodations. Researchers will have the opportunity to provide their own racks to mount into the vehicle (subject to a safety review), or use standard racks and services to mount their experiments. Flight experiments may be autonomous, remotely operated, or operated manually by an accompanying researcher provided by the customer or by Blue Origin. The tables below show some of the preliminary accommodations and standard services Blue Origin anticipates will be available, along with a partial list of the types of investigations that can be performed.

Timeline

Flight testing of prototype New Shepard vehicles began in 2006. Blue Origin expects the first opportunities for experiments requiring an accompanying researcher astronaut to be available in 2012. Flight opportunities in 2011 may be available for autonomous or remotely-controlled experiments on an uncrewed flight test.