"We're working on the suborbital crew capsule separately, as well as an orbital crew vehicle to support NASA's commercial crew program."īlue Origin spokeswoman Gwen Griffin declined to comment on the test program, other than to point to Bezos' statement and previously released documents.
"The development vehicle doesn't have a crew capsule - just a close-out fairing instead," he explained. 24 test involved the suborbital spaceship, rather than the work covered by NASA's agreement with Blue Origin.īezos said the crew capsule was not mounted on the propulsion module for the test flight. Earlier this year, Blue Origin reported that the suborbital capsule was "undergoing final assembly." In documents filed with NASA, Blue Origin says it intends to build an orbital space vehicle capable of carrying astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, to be launched initially on an expendable rocket such as United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5.īlue Origin also plans to offer suborbital spaceflights for private passengers, which would involve vertical trips powered by its own reusable propulsion module. Since then, NASA has awarded Blue Origin more than $25 million to develop its space vehicle as well as a "pusher" launch abort system. The test flight unfolded at Bezos' private spaceport, about 25 miles north of Van Horn, Texas - the same site where Blue Origin's first experimental vehicle was tested in 2006.
We're already working on our next development vehicle."
Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard, and the Blue Origin team is doing an outstanding job. "A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle. "Three months ago, we successfully flew our second test vehicle in a short hop mission, and then last week we lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet," Bezos wrote.
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