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Blue Origin's plans

Blue Origin's plan for its West Texas spaceport was revealed via its 200-page plus environmental assessment doc. "Blue Origin proposes to launch its reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) on suborbital, ballistic trajectories to altitudes in excess of 325,000 feet (99,060 meters) from a privately-owned space launch site in Culberson County, Texas." [Link]

The strategy is to build the New Shepard suborbital vehicle incrementally, starting with low-altitude tests, progressing to higher-altitude testing, and culminating with commercial flights. Early testing would use prototype vehicles that are smaller and/or less capable than the proposed final design.

Prototype craft would use the same or a subset of the same types of propellants as the operational New Shepard RLV in smaller quantities and would use the same ground facilities, infrastructure, and equipment.

Each new trial product would fly to higher altitudes and/or demonstrate additional subsystems than the previous prototype. Eventually, Blue Origin proposes to perform multiple flight tests of the actual operational New Shepard RLV system carrying Blue Origin personnel before commencing commercial operation.

jon posted this at 8:14 AM
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