American private space company Blue Origin “soon” will begin passenger suborbital space launches using rocket New Shepard, and next year is going to begin selling tickets for commercial flights, according to the portal Space.com with reference to company representatives.
Speaking at the event Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit, the Vice-President of the company Blue Origin Rob Meyerson has shared some new information about the current status of the development of suborbital spacecraft, the company also said that Blue Origin will start selling tickets for commercial space.
“Very soon we plan to start the first passenger test runs. The sale of tickets for commercial flights will begin in 2019,” — shared Meyerson, but, unfortunately, did not specify the ticket price for a suborbital flight.
All previous launches of the New Shepard passed unmanned, but the company has already noted that the latter tests will be held with the participation of testers. Moreover, the company is quite reluctant to share details of your progress, giving only vague comments on similar issues.
“We continue active work aimed at the assurance that all construction is fully stable and ready for flight,” said Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin in April of this year in an interview with various media.
“Once we’re sure that everything is ready, then immediately start a dialogue about pricing and also about how will look the whole process of preparation and launch.”
Even the owner of the company, the multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos is not telling any details.
“We don’t know the policy ticket prices. We still have not decided,” said Bezos in an interview in may of this year.
This approach, of course, stands out against the background of other competitors who are also planning to operate a commercial suborbital flights in the near future. For example, the same Virgin Galactic started selling tickets to the passenger launches more than 10 years ago, when the first spaceplane SpaceShipTwo, the company was in its early stages of development. In total to date, Virgin Galactic has approximately 700 customers who at least made an advance payment.
Blue Origin conducted the launches of its New Shepard rocket eight times, including the first in April 2015, which can be called partially successful. When the rocket has risen to a predetermined height and removing the prototype spacecraft, which successfully landed back on parachutes. The booster (remember, New Shepard is designed as a reusable rocket) are unable to make a soft landing because of problems with hydraulics. In the end, the module crashed. The last successful launch and landing took place on 29 April. When will be the next – is unknown, but Dean Kassman, head of technology Department, Blue Origin later in the conversation with media said that the next launch will happen “in the summer season.”
Speakers at a recent meeting with journalists Rob Meyerson, the long-time President of Blue Origin, however, in this year led the development of a new technological trends within the company and became involved concepts. For example, one of these is the concept of the lunar landing module Blue Moon.
“We believe that the construction of colonies on the moon will be the next logical step in the conquest of Mars and more distant space,” said Meyerson at the meeting.
What company is going to do after the project Blue Moon — “remains to be seen”. Currently Blue Origin is hiring highly qualified specialists for the roadmap of the company for the near future, as well as for work and research of new technology projects that fit the main vision of the company.
“Our vision is millions of people living and working in space. And we understand that to realize this dream there are a variety of ways. The definition of one of these ways is what we are doing now,” concluded Meyerson.
Blue Origin will start selling tickets into space next year
Nikolai Khizhnyak