Blue Origin launched a spacecraft that can simulate lunar gravity into suborbital space during a research flight from West Texas.
Blue Origin's famed New Shepard spacecraft successfully simulated the moon's low gravity on board its capsule during a brief flight Tuesday morning over West Texas.
Video of the uncrewed launch, which Blue Origin livestreamed, shows the New Shepard climbing to the edge of space, where the capsule separated from the rocket to pull off the feat for the first time in nearly 30 missions. Though the daring maneuver wasn't clear from the launch footage - captured both on the ground and from a fleet of drones - it involved the capsule rotating in such a precise way as to create conditions that would mimic the lunar surface.
The space technology company, founded in 2000 by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said in a press release that the mission sets the stage to better enable NASA and other companies with sights on the moon to test technology critical for exploring the lunar surface.
What happened during Blue Origin launch from West Texas?
The New Shepard launched around 11 a.m. EST from Launch Site One, more than 140 miles east of El Paso in Culberson County, according to Blue Origin.
New Shepard is a launch vehicle designed to be fully reusable, with a capsule that returns to Earth via three parachutes. The rocket itself is powered by one BE-3PM engine, which propels it to suborbit before restarting to slow the booster down to just 6 miles per hour for a controlled landing back on the launch pad.
The capsule and rocket booster separated nearly three minutes into the flight, and by the fourth minute the capsule had successfully created lunar gravity conditions, according to Blue Origin's livestream coverage.
The booster then touched back down within 7-and-a-half minutes of takeoff. Though one of its three parachutes was slow to deploy, the capsule also safely landed just after 10 minutes into the flight in a remote area as a team deployed to recover the craft and its scientific payloads.
The company first tried to launch the NS-29 mission on Jan. 28, but called off that attempt due to poor weather and technical issues.
How did the New Shepard spacecraft simulate lunar gravity?
The New Shepard mission is far from the first to carry scientific payloads to the edge of space, but it was the first to mimic the moon's gravity.
The gravitational pull of the lunar surface is about 1/6 that of Earth's, meaning a person who weighs about 100 pounds would feel closer to just 17 pounds on the moon.
To simulate those conditions, the capsule had to spin at a rate of about 11 revolutions per minute, providing about two minutes of lunar gravity forces. Previously, the moon's gravity could only be simulated for a few seconds at a time at NASA's zero-gravity research facility using a centrifuge, or for about 20 seconds during parabolic flights, Blue Origin said.
The spacecraft carried 30 science payloads, all but one of which was to test technology under lunar-like conditions. Almost all of the cargo belonged to NASA, which helped fund the mission as the U.S. space agency prepares to send humans back to the moon in the years ahead under its Artemis campaign.
What to know about Blue Origin's spaceflight missions
The flight test comes as Blue Origin continues to become a major player in the commercial space industry - competing with the likes of billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX for NASA's business, as well as the business of other private companies.
Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, New Shepard can hold up to six passengers for a brief voyage above the Kármán Line - the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of outer space. Nine of Blue Origin's 29 missions have carried humans to the edge of space, allowing a total of 47 passengers so far to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returns to Earth.
Bezos himself joined the spacecraft's first crewed flight in 2021 as part of the NS-16 mission, which came after New Shepard flew 15 times without a crew since 2012.
The latest launch of the New Shepard vehicle comes less than a month since Blue Origin got its massive New Glenn rocket off the ground for its maiden flight.
The 320-foot heavy-lift launch vehicle, which launched without a crew on Jan. 16 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, is meant to challenge SpaceX in regularly deploying satellites and other cargo into orbit.
Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, the New Glenn rivals SpaceX's 400-foot Starship in size. Its first stage, powered by seven Blue Origin engines known as BE-4, is designed to be reusable for 25 missions.