Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin plans to launch a new crew capsule on Monday

Blue Origin is preparing to motorboat its NS-27 ngo with the RSS Kármán Line, its caller unit capsule, connected Monday astatine 9AM ET. It volition beryllium the archetypal motorboat for the capsule, which the institution says in its announcement volition person improved show and reusability, on with “an updated livery, and accommodations for payloads connected the booster.”

The formation volition transportation 2 LIDAR sensors into abstraction that volition beryllium utilized for Blue Origin’s Lunar Permanence programme to develop Moon landers. Those are among 12 payloads that besides see ultra-wideband proximity operations sensors, a reproduction of the achromatic monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and pupil postcards submitted to its Club for the Future nonprofit. Blue Origin volition watercourse the motorboat on its website, starting 15 minutes earlier liftoff.

If Monday’s motorboat takes spot arsenic planned, it volition beryllium the 2nd New Shepard formation since May, erstwhile the institution carried retired its first crewed launch since 2022. Blue Origin completed another New Shepard mission successful August.

NS-27’s adjacent formation comes arsenic Blue Origin works toward the extremity of becoming a existent SpaceX competitor. Company CEO Dave Limp, the erstwhile Amazon hardware brag who took implicit precocious past year, said the institution needs to “be capable to physique things a lot” to go “a satellite people manufacturer” successful an interrogation with CNBC.

Blue Origin plans to motorboat New Glenn, its large reusable booster that recently completed its archetypal second-stage blistery occurrence test, for the archetypal clip successful November. Blue Origin says the rocket tin present 45,000 kilograms (more than 99,000 pounds) into debased Earth orbit, which CNBC notes is astir treble what SpaceX’s Falcon 9 tin do. The institution besides hopes to onshore the booster connected its archetypal flight.