New Shepard’s 29th Mission Will Fly 30 Payloads, Mimic the Moon’s Gravity

Blue Origin’s next New Shepard flight, NS-29, will simulate the Moon’s gravity and fly 30 payloads, all but one of which is focused on testing lunar-related technologies. The launch window opens on Tuesday, January 28, at 10:00 AM CST / 1600 UTC from Launch Site One in West Texas. The webcast will begin 15 minutes before liftoff.

The payloads will experience at least two minutes of lunar gravity forces, a first for New Shepard and made possible in part through support from NASA. The flight will test six broad lunar technology areas: In-situ resource utilization, dust mitigation, advanced habitation systems, sensors and instrumentation, small spacecraft technologies, and entry descent and landing. Proving out these technologies at lower cost is another step toward Blue Origin’s mission to lower the cost of access to space for the benefit of Earth. It also enables NASA and other lunar surface technology providers to test innovations critical to achieving Artemis program goals and exploring the Moon’s surface. 

The mission patch for NS-29

The New Shepard crew capsule is using its Reaction Control System (RCS) to spin up to approximately 11 revolutions per minute. This spin rate simulates one-sixth Earth gravity at the midpoint of the crew capsule lockers. In simulated lunar gravity, customers can accelerate their learning and technology readiness for lunar payloads at much lower cost. Previously, the Moon’s gravity could only be simulated a few seconds at a time via centrifuge drop tower or for ~20 seconds aboard parabolic flights. 

New Shepard’s 29th flight brings the total number of commercial payloads flown on New Shepard to more than 175. Of the mission's 30 payloads, 29 will fly inside the crew capsule and one will fly on the booster with exposure to the ambient space environment. More than half are supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, which is managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Four of the payloads are from Honeybee Robotics, a division within Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems business. Honeybee’s experiments will test technologies focused on penetrating, excavating, and processing lunar regolith. 

This mission will fly our dedicated payloads capsule paired with our recently-debuted booster, demonstrating the compatibility between the boosters and capsules in our fleet and increasing launch availability for our customers. We now have three capsules and two boosters in service to better address sales demand for payloads and astronauts. 

The mission will also carry thousands of postcards on behalf of Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s STEAM-focused nonprofit whose mission is to inspire and mobilize future generations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. The organization has engaged more than 44 million people globally since its founding in 2019. Students can submit digital postcards here. 

NS-29 Manifest Highlights

• Electrostatic Dust Lofting (EDL), NASA Kennedy Space Center: EDL is a project studying how Moon dust gets electrically charged and lifted up when exposed to ultraviolet light. Insights from this study will help future lunar missions address dust problems. The project was created by NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida along with the University of Central Florida and the University of Colorado, Boulder. 
• Fluidic Operations in Reduced Gravity Experiment (FORGE), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): FORGE will test how to manage liquids and gases in space. This technology is critical for instruments that may monitor water quality for astronauts or search for evidence of life on ocean worlds in our solar system. 
• Honey Bubble Excitation Experiment (H-BEE), Honeybee Robotics: H-BEE is a tool evaluating how bubbles behave in thick liquids on the Moon. The insights will help better predict how oxygen bubbles will act in melted Moon rock during a process called molten regolith electrolysis. 
• Soil Properties Assessment Resistance and Thermal Analysis (SPARTA), JPL: SPARTA is a toolkit designed for geomechanical testing below the lunar surface. The test aims to understand how lunar gravity affects its performance. SPARTA was created by JPL in Southern California and developed by Honeybee Robotics.  
• Lunar-g Combustion Investigation (LUCI), NASA Glenn Research Center: LUCI is an experiment to study how materials catch fire in the Moon's gravity compared to Earth's. The findings will help NASA and its partners create safer living and working habitats for people on the Moon. This project is developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, together with Voyager Technologies. 
• Film Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array Micropropulsion System (FEMTA), Purdue University: FEMTA is a water-based micro-propulsion system in development by researchers at Purdue. This small thruster helps precisely control the direction and positioning of small satellites. The experiments are measuring how well FEMTA and its passive propellant delivery system work in the low-gravity environment of space. The experiment will be flown on the New Shepard booster.

Quelle: Blue Origin