Out of the blue, private spaceflight firm Blue Origin is just about to host its first ever live stream of one of its rocket launches. Don't miss today's live stream.
The rocket launch was initially set to take place last Friday, but it was delayed to repair a faulty O-ring in the capsule's nitrogen pressurization system. Now the reusable New Shepard launch system is set to lift off today at 10:15 a.m. EDT, with the webcast of the event scheduled for 9:45 a.m. EDT.
It'll be the fourth launch using the same New Shepard capsule and booster system. The boost's ability to land vertically for reuse attracted a lot more attention to Blue Origin's space program, but few people were able to watch it live.
This live stream may be a sign of Blue Origin's growing confidence in its ability to safely land rocket, but Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and founder of Blue Origin, said the private spaceflight firm plans to keep "pushing the envelop on the booster."
"As always, this is a development test flight, and anything can happen," Bezos said.
As for today's agenda, the latest effort to push the booster's envelope will see Blue Origin force the failure of one string of the capsule's parachutes.
"There are three strings of chutes, and two of the three should still deploy nominally and, along with our retrothrust system, safely land the capsule," Bezos said. It "works on paper, and this test is designed to validate that."
The planned abortion of the first string of parachutes will start about seven minutes into the launch. And as far as pushing the booster, Bezos indicated that the company step up the complexity in maneuvering it.
Late Saturday night rival Virgin Galactic tweeted out support for Blue Origin's latest feat, because space needs all of us apparently.
Good luck to @JeffBezos & @blueorigin for their test flight planned for this Sunday. We'll be cheering for you. Space needs all of us!
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) June 17, 2016
Last time Blue Origin launched New Shepard, the rocket roared 64 miles up during a launch back in April of this year. The company's daring feat that time around was restarting the descending rocket's propulsive engine just a quarter of a mile above the surface of the earth.
