Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is poised upright at Launch Complicated 36 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida.
Preparations started in earnest a number of hours earlier than launch when liquid hydrogen began flowing into New Glenn’s propellant tanks.
At 10 minutes earlier than liftoff time, the launch director will conduct a “go ballot,” asking individuals whether or not the rocket’s programs are prepared and whether or not the climate circumstances are favorable.
The final 4 minutes earlier than launch are the “terminal rely” when the rocket’s pc takes over the countdown course of.
The seven engines within the booster will ignite 5.6 seconds earlier than liftoff. That provides the pc an opportunity to verify the efficiency of the engines earlier than committing to liftoff. If something isn’t fairly proper, it is going to shut down the engines.
If the whole lot is nice, the clamps holding the rocket will let go, and New Glenn will rise into the sky.
An important second will come one minute, 39 seconds after launch because the rocket passes via what is named max-Q, when atmospheric stress on the rocket is biggest.
If it passes via that second intact, the booster through the third minute of the flight might be carried out pushing the rocket upward and the engines will shut down. Twelve seconds later, it is going to drop away, and 9 seconds after that, the second-stage engine will hearth up.
Not lengthy afterward, the fairing — the 2 halves of the nostril cone defending the payload — will jettison. At that altitude, the environment is skinny sufficient that the fairing is not wanted.
Over the subsequent couple of minutes, the booster will gentle up twice because it tries to land on a floating platform named Jacklyn, after Jeff Bezos’ mom, within the Atlantic Ocean.
In the meantime, the second-stage engine will proceed to fireplace till practically 13 minutes after launch after which shut down.
Blue Origin will then swap on a prototype of its Blue Ring area tug, testing the communications, energy and pc programs. It’ll stay connected to the rocket’s second stage.
About an hour after launch, the second stage will carry out one other engine burn to push it right into a excessive elliptical orbit, coming as shut as 1,500 miles from Earth and swinging out as distant as 12,000 miles. That’s a lot larger than launches to low-Earth orbit, a number of hundred miles up.
In an interview on Sunday, Jeff Bezos, the founding father of Blue Origin, mentioned that orbit will enable testing of the communications programs at all kinds of altitudes. “And it places the automobile in a really harsh radiation surroundings, which we additionally need to check,” he mentioned.
Then, virtually six hours after launch, the mission might be over. The programs on the rocket stage and Blue Ring might be made protected and turned off, and they’re going to proceed their elliptical orbiting. Few different satellites occupy that area, making the possibilities slim that it’s going to collide with the rest.
“It will get disposed in place,” Mr. Bezos mentioned.
