Blue Origin spins up lunar gravity for New Shepard flight

Bezos' rocketeers tout capability as useful for NASA and other tech providers

Blue Origin has sent its reusable New Shepard rocket on another suborbital lob, this time simulating lunar gravity for capsule payloads.

The rocket launched this week following delays due to thick clouds and vehicle avionics issues. Liftoff occurred at 1600 UTC, and the capsule reached 105 km above sea level before returning to Earth. One of the capsule's three parachutes failed to deploy correctly, although this did not affect the landing.

The 29th New Shepard flight was the 14th payload mission for the suborbital rocket, carrying 30 payloads from NASA, commercial companies, and research institutions. Twenty-nine payloads were loaded into the capsule, and one was attached to the booster.

The capsule's reaction control system spun the vehicle for about two minutes to simulate lunar gravity.

The spin reached approximately 11 revolutions per minute, which simulated one-sixth of Earth's gravity at the midpoint of the crew capsule lockers.

Phil Joyce, Senior Vice President at Blue Origin, said: "New Shepard's ability to provide a lunar gravity environment is an extremely unique and valuable capability as researchers set their sights on a return to the Moon.

"This enables researchers to test lunar technologies at a fraction of the cost, rapidly iterate, and test again in a significantly compressed time frame."

Demand for simulated lunar gravity is increasing, although a launch on New Shepard is not strictly necessary, depending on the requirements of the payloads. Companies such as ZeroG fly a Boeing 727 on parabolas, which means experiments can run in a sixth of Earth's gravity for short periods.

However, while the duration of lunar gravity that can be simulated on parabolic flights is measured in seconds, approximately two minutes is possible on a New Shepard flight.

The concept of spinning spacecraft to generate artificial gravity is not new. NASA gave serious thought to doing so with its Skylab station and, at one time, planned to add a centrifuge module to the International Space Station (ISS) before budget woes canceled the component.

Blue Origin boss Dave Limp described the company's approach as "an entirely new way to bring lunar gravity to NASA and other lunar technology providers."

Perhaps considering that certain elements within the US administration have their sights set beyond the Moon, Limp added: "Plus, we can adapt this New Shepard capability to closely mirror Mars and other solar system gravity environments in the future." ®