Blue Origin plans to deliver gravity-style missions on lunar aircraft much closer to Earth.
From 2022, the company plans to meet a long-standing need to simulate lunar gravity – which is a sixth of the Earth’s – for larger payloads and for longer periods than current options. Blue Origin will modify its New Shepard spacecraft, suborbital, to act like a large centrifuge in orbit to gently present the earth and the experiments inside the spacecraft.
Experiments that require lunar conditions usually require a parabolic flight – which provides only a few seconds of lunar gravity at a time – or a centrifuge, which is limited by size, according to a NASA statement. However, Blue Origin will provide its reaction control system with gravity for at least two minutes at a time.
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“NASA will soon have more options to test these innovations in lunar gravity thanks to a partnership with Blue Origin to offer new testing capabilities in the New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket system,” NASA added in the statement.
NASA wants to simulate lunar gravity on Blue Origin’s flights to prepare for actual missions to the moon by astronauts in the near future. The Artemis program has a renewed commitment of the Biden administration when it took office this year, though there is still no word yet that the Trump-era 2024 deadline will be maintained. The point, however, is that the moon remains NASA’s next major human reconnaissance target – and they will want to prepare technologies for that challenging environment.
“NASA is pleased to be one of the first customers to take advantage of this new capability,” Christopher Baker, Program Manager of the Flight Opportunity Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, added in the same statement.
Possible technologies that can be tested could include the extraction of the moon’s regolith (or soil), the supply of water or other resources to the moon (called in situ use of resources), or the preparation of environmental control and life support systems. for astronauts, Baker said. “Many systems designed for use on earth simply do not work elsewhere,” he said.
Companies wishing to participate in the New Shepard flights can participate through the NASA Flight Program, whose website is here. A certain number of technologies are selected each year to test aboard one of the various NASA-funded vehicle options.
Aside from these flight testing options, Blue Origin hopes to eventually land on the moon itself. In 2019, the company a lunar lander design called “Blue Moon” intended to participate in NASA’s Commercial Moon Service Program (CLPS) for companies. Blue Origin is eligible for CLPS events, but has not yet received a contracted mission.
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