Watch as Blue Origin rocket launches into space
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Just start 21
like
you sh t
there she goes
New Shepherd has cleared the tower on its way to
space
with its crew of six
They are screaming up towards the Carmen Line
You can see the speedometer on your bottom left there
as well as the altimeter
And we're going to follow along with the flight on
the left side of your screen with those milestones
First one coming up here is Max Q
here
Why Thank you
Uh Oh Max Q has been confirmed maximum dynamic pressure
It's when the forces on the vehicle between the atmosphere
and the speed there are maximum
We punch right through it as well as punched through
that layer of clouds
The vehicle continues on its upward ascent towards space
2000
If you are just joining us we have had a
clean lift off of New Shepherd's 26th flight
In this program we are witnessing the eighth Human Space
flight of New Shepherd
We have astronauts 38 to 43 on the vehicle on
its way to space
Our next milestone here is main engine cut off 800
and what we'll witness is the speed will start to
come down
But the excuse me the altitude will continue to go
up when the speed hits zero means we have hit
apogee 3000 people
Jack I think one of the other cool part of
this program is that we you see that kind of
slight little hot dog roll
We got going on of the rocket
We just want to give well it's really is just
to give the astronauts each of 360 degree view as
they're going up which is so cool
All right main engine cut off and separation have been
confirmed
And Jackie this is when our our astronauts are feeling
zero
G
Dr Rob Ferre is gonna start his his experiments up
there in the cabin hopefully after a little time to
look out the window pre experimentation I would totally steal
at least AAA couple of looks out of the big
gorgeous windows
and again we're coming up on average
Do you see that the speed is reducing when it
hits zero That's when we've hit
That is when we've hit apogee at this point
We are well over the Carmen line about 328,000 or
103 128,000 ft or 100 kilometers up
and there it is apogee about 340,000 ft
Jackie can you imagine the view I was talking about
being jealous of your astronaut training but I'm more jealous
of them right now
You know they're unbuckled at the moment
They're turning their somersaults
They are soaking it in
They are you know we're witnessing six people having their
minds blown right now as we speak
But the booster is heading on down and it will
beat the the capsule back to earth
The booster of course has a controlled landing on a
landing pad just two miles north of where it's taken
off from the capsule less aerodynamically shaped will uh will
land second under three parachutes uh in our uh landing
zone in our valley in West Texas
So far a nominal flight of our 26th mission to
space and back of the new Shepherd vehicle plus our
eighth human Space flight
Congratulations truly to all six of our astronauts today
Oh I'm sorry
Our crew who officially have become astronauts right Massive
Congratulations over the car line
that very quickly
Phoenix reports
Phoenix report status
Phoenix uh 45 and six are at each
You can tell them
Are we all all six astronauts are back in their
seat and the booster is screaming on home
Yeah as we mentioned that booster is gonna return to
earth a lot faster than the capsule because of the
aerodynamic nature of the crew capsule that's coming back to
the clouds
That's a sweet view of the booster as it's coming
back through the atmosphere here
That's two th 2000 fee change
So you see the drive brakes have been deployed on
the rail
There's the relight of that be three engine
that gorgeous hover above the landing pad I can turn
it off
and booster touchdown a successful touchdown of the booster for
the NS 26 mission
Always a sight to see
Always a sight to see real
I mean it's been going thousands of MPH and then
it comes in landing you see it just kind of
hovers there at five miles an hour
It's such a smooth descent and it's and landing
And as as a reminder to people this is so
critical to the reusability because the the smoother the landing
the less you jostle the rocket the less you have
to refurbish the rocket the more you can more uses
you can get out of the rocket
Absolutely
And some some really cool things here right Like those
fins you were talking about earlier our lessons learned with
guiding this vehicle back are gonna be applied to our
next big vehicle New Glen
So again just so many lessons learned from this booster
every single mission every single mission
Now the the crew capsule is obviously also coming back
down to land here
Uh We are going to have first the drogue parachutes
that come out those are kind of like the guide
parachutes then we're gonna see the mains they will reef
So they're gonna kind of go out just a little
bit and then they fully inflate and talk about cutting
speed
You can already see the speed on the the on
the the screen
There it comes in at just like 1516 miles an
hour for nice
There she is
And again these parachutes both the drugs and the mains
are essential in providing a gentle touchdown for the capsule
But as we get closer to the ground here you're
gonna see a retro thrust system on the base of
the capsule um which does kick up a bit of
West Texas dust but it makes for an even smoother
touchdown
Then again you know like you said the already slow
speed that the capsule is descending at now we're just
400 ft away from touchdown
I again stay tuned for that retro thrust system here
and crew capsule touchdown
Welcome home to the newest six astronauts the blue steel
team
Once more
What appears to be completely smooth flight for New Shepherd
our booster touching down at the at the landing pad
and a soft landing for our latest crew just a
beautiful flight up and back
I mean that is just one of the the the
cleanest flights I've seen from this rocket but behind every
rocket is an extraordinary team
So a big shout out to the entire new Shepherd
program
What a beautiful flight today
And another congratulations to the six newest astronauts
What a day it has been
Now our capsule recovery team is currently going to be
driving out to the convoy to meet the capsule
We're going to save the capsule and get ready to
open the hatch and welcome our astronauts back home
And that convoy includes obviously you know the vehicle team
the new Shepherd professionals but also the family members of
our crew who without a doubt are excited to reunite
with their loved ones their newly minted astronauts
I you know we saw it earlier in in one
of the videos but some of those hugs when their
astronauts come back to earth are probably some of the
most memorable biggest hugs in a lifetime
There's some mean hugs
Those are some mean hugs
We've captured some mean hugs on these uh on these
webcasts
Well so talking about friends and family you know we
talk the these people have dreamed of going to space
for a long time but with those sorts of dreams
come friends and family that support in so many ways
emotional and otherwise
Um and on that note while we're waiting for the
recovery crew to make it out to the capsule we
were able a couple of days ago to have a
chat with a very special former astronaut and someone who's
got a tight connection with one of today's crew
Let's hear what ns 20 astronaut Jim Kitchen had to
say about what this experience is like for astronauts as
well as what his daughter Carson Kitchen may be experiencing
right now
All right we've got a very special guest with us
today from our NS 20 crew Jim kitchen
Welcome back
How does it feel to be uh down in West
Texas Once again it's exciting to be here to watch
another space launch and uh here at the iconic El
Capitan Hotel in lovely Van Horn Texas
Well this isn't just any you know space launch
There's somebody very special going up
Tell me about her
This is a special launch
Um When she was a little girl my daughter Carson
she told me definitively that she's going to be an
astronaut and here we are 15 years later and she's
actually gonna be an astronaut in a uh you know
go into space in a in a couple of days
How you might obviously you're very proud dad
What's it's there's got to be a lot of contradicting
thoughts going through your head right now
What are you feeling Yeah
Well but um it's it's emotional
Her mom and I are here our family our friends
are coming
It's emotional um to see someone that's wanted to go
to space
It is actually you know a dream come true and
you know to to be able to to have that
dream and to to have it fulfilled is is amazing
But you know I think about Alan Shepherd in 1961
going to space and then his daughter Laura Shepherd uh
doing that after I you know it's it's surreal to
think that she and I are are gonna be you
know have that in common
Um but it's um you know such mixed feelings on
this because it's exciting
But you know we're also you know watching watching this
and with anticipation
Yeah that's your baby your baby
So um have you spoken to Carson uh since she
started her her training what what's going through her head
the these days at this moment it's one thing to
be thinking about it when you're back at home
It's another thing once you get to Van Horn you
know it's real
Yeah I saw her last night and she's really excited
She's a very positive person
Um She looked at me and said dad of all
of the people that have ever lived on this on
this planet and we talked about that number
It was 100 and 10 billion people uh that she
gets an opportunity to go to space
And she's dumbfounded by that
We were looking at the stars last night at the
astronaut village and she said you know people since the
dawn of humanity have wanted to go to space and
to actually be able to do that um be one
of the 1st 700 there's only been 100 women hundreds
or so women that have have done that
And so for her to be one of the the
youngest women uh and the actually the youngest woman to
go past the Carmen line is surreal
Um but you know she's she's all business
She can't wait till till uh launch day
And um but she's just having the time of her
life
She hugged me a couple of times and it's just
like I can't believe this is happening
Uh but she's excited and very confident
Amazing
Well talking about all business um your daughter Carson has
found an amazing organization called Orbital
Do you wanna talk to us a little bit about
uh about the organization and its mission in general
What she wants to do is just encourage young women
to pursue
Jack
As we just saw Jim Kitchen a very proud father
of his daughter Carson kitchen one of the newest astronauts
we have here and what we see on the screen
we've got our uh our recovery crew
The first person that ran out there was Sarah Knight
Uh our crew member seven
What she does first is she she runs around the
capsule to each one of the six windows to each
one of the six astronauts gets the thumbs up and
uh make sure everybody is is happy and uh and
safe
And then the the rest of the team comes in
You've seen passing in the background the the the Rivian
trucks
There goes another one those are filled with uh with
friends and family that are gonna join here in a
moment
Of course
First thing is safety need to make sure that the
capsule uh you know has vented whatever it needs to
vent
Uh And that we're you know we've taken the the
the lines of the parachutes off
And then next what you'll see is somebody will bring
over uh the the stairs to put under the hatch
to put next to the hatch
It is about it's about a meter it's about 3
ft the bottom of the hatch from the base of
the um sorry the base of the hatch to the
ground itself
So it just makes for a more comfortable uh egress
for our astronauts as they come home the capsule there
seems to have found a really nice clear spot in
our desert to land
How convenient
I've been out there with the team trying to detangle
the parachute lines from the brush that's out there
And that is if you like taking out knots if
you're one of those those odd people that really enjoys
that and finds that not one of those
No I'm not one of those stress relieving
You should come join our team
But no not today
It is a um a nice clean landing of the
the crew capsule
You see the stairs have been put there
So we're just moments away here from the egress of
our astronauts and the welcome home from their friends and
family
Let's take a look
You should have covered Flight
Peter too
When
welcome back everybody to New Shepherd's 26 mission to space
and back
If you miss it a completely nominal and successful flight
of both the booster you see it nicely standing standing
proud in the background a spectacular view in an a
with its ride in the background and in the foreground
a very happy capsule
There we are
Our safety crew is saving the vehicle making sure everything
is vented making sure the parachute uh lines are detached
We've have the stairs that are all set up there
We're waiting for the astronauts to uh to egress
We've got the additional vehicles that are rolling in here
with friends and family and inside that capsule Jackie we've
got six of the newest astronauts
I mean just it's uh this view for me never
gets old
I've been here 10 years
This is the eighth one of these
We've done more than 40 astronauts
We've supported going to space
God there is family and friends getting over there getting
ready to for those big hugs that we were telling
about
a big congratulations to Carson Kitchen who has become the
youngest female to cross over the Carmen line the internationally
recognized line of space at 100 kilometers up
And also just a huge congratulations to Doctor Rob Ferrell
and his entire team at the University of Florida plant
lab which is so amazing
He's the first NASA funded researcher to journey on a
commercial suborbital vehicle
Again I can't wait to to read that research paper
and Jack we've talked about it um earlier in the
show one of the things that's so cool about New
Shepherd is we've done payloads we've done uh Human Space
flight
We're now combining the two for tended missions
It serves as a perfect pipeline for the science community
from around the world to fly their experiments and their
technology up to space
You get sure you get a couple of minutes of
zero G up in space
By the way we can also put put experiments mounted
on the outside of the capsule if you want exposure
to to uh to the vacuum of space
Yeah we've we've actually flown some really cool um lunar
landing sensors mounted on the exterior of the booster
When we get that you know reentry data it's super
helpful for those type of payloads as well
It's it's super helpful and you know sometimes you don't
necessarily need the full flight to the international space station
which is very cool and often times what you do
need
But in building up to that flight to the ISS
start with a a new Shepherd launch which is less
expensive
You get your science back immediately you can do it
again and then get ready to go to fly
So you know this is the first I hope of
many many human tended uh uh experiments to go on
New Shepherd
Jackie
I was just looking at the capsule
One of the things that um that stands out to
be
So I've watched a lot of these lounges and landings
is man the caps will pick a really nice clear
spot in the desert
I've I've been out there with the team when these
parachute lines get all you know tangled up in the
brush and there are some really nasty pokey plants out
there
And um I don't know if you're if you're one
of those those people that enjoy undoing knots
I'm not I don't even like untying like a knot
in my shoelace
So I'm definitely not one that uh then you know
come join us for that parachute crew but here we
go hatches open
Welcome back
Astronauts
Hey
Yeah
Oh
Mhm
Thank you
Seeing a lot of smiles a lot of jubilant here
No
Oh that is love
That is emotion
Yeah
Yeah
You see the families Jackie we talked about it
You know this might be the astronaut's dream but the
support that that they that they need and they get
from these family and friend member uh uh family members
and friends that are down there that's you know you
have astronauts that are having emotions that they've never felt
But to see your loved one come back from an
experience like that right And like we said earlier space
play on New Shepherd has kind of become a family
affair
So seeing that hug between New Shepherd astronaut Jim kitchen
and his daughter Carson
Really just such a special moment really hitting that that
point home in a very unique way
So we've seen all six of our astronauts come out
again
Absolutely
Jubilant we saw Doctor Rob Fre put his University of
Florida hat on representing um as you said I can't
wait to to read the his research paper on his
findings
Yeah I don't think I've read something like that since
um high school biology but I am ready now is
now is my time
And I will tell you when I learned about it
in high school they weren't talking about something like what
Rob just did
Um And so I'm very very excited for what's to
come out of that
And the potentially huge impact on science and research is
just so exciting
Yeah it is it it's wonderful
What what boundaries a program like New Shepherd can press
forward
Obviously we're looking forward to the next generation which is
New Glen our big orbital rocket that will be launching
for the first time later this year
Um And all the doors that it's going to open
Absolutely
And and again you know really the lessons learned from
New Shepherd are so applicable to everything we've been doing
on New Glenn
We mentioned the Finns earlier as just an example but
even with mission operations right conducting a mission like NS
26 all of those lessons learned are directly applicable to
our mission operators for New Glenn here in just a
few months in just a few months
And I mean II I can't wait for that day
Jackie
That is I mean think about the emotion that we're
feeling here today
I'm gonna make an analogy
Please bear with me
It's gonna be a bit tortured
You ready for it 110,000 pounds of thrust on the
be three engine
You take that and you multiply multiply it by 35
3.85 million pounds of thrust on the base of the
new Glenn rocket
Now you're doing math
So over the course of this webcast we've hit biology
chemistry and mats
So I just wanted to acknowledge that landmarks we are
but you know that is the like it is going
to be at least 35 times as you know as
exciting and the rumble that's going to happen down there
at the cape
I mean it is going to be huge it is
going to be absolutely huge you know and by the
way just like New Shepherd it will evolve to take
humans on board
And this same emotion you're gonna see that after after
astronauts have gone to space gone to the moon
I mean it's um what what we're doing here at
Blue Origin is um no I just feel very fortunate
to be part of the part of the program part
of the company
Yeah I have to tell you Arian back um eight
years ago
When I about eight years ago when I joined Blue
the the real you know thing that that tipped it
over for me was the people here at Blue and
you were one of them back in the day Oh
stop
Truly
They still are to this day
So thank you Arian
It didn't take very long
No it didn't take you long at all
I mean you kind of black out
Oh yeah I did
I did so much fun astronaut
It's great
That was
people
Yes
And then it becomes just yeah it was
Tell me what
you so they're getting a couple of insights from Carson
Kitchen
Obviously the audio is a little a little patchy out
there
I didn't hear the did you see the final number
We'll find out
I'll find out what was it like was pretty good
The ride the ride was incredibly smooth and I was
so impressed with the ride up by being there the
darkness of space
You can't there's no way to talk about it
There's no way to talk about how how impressive space
is in the earth below
again
Yeah understanding this audio is a little shaky here
But again we'll get all of these amazing reactions on
our socials clearly
So stay tuned for that after work the way it
was supposed to hours weeks and months of preparation all
went real well
Everything is good
It couldn't have been a better experience
Thank you for helping us path finding that this looks
like moving forward
You bet there's there's there's room and opportunity for scientists
of all sizes shapes and ages to do this
They really should
There's a lot a lot of opportunity in a ride
like that
Thanks for flying
You're the best
Well if you're looking for a testimonial for the future
of human tended research on New Shepherd I couldn't have
said it better myself
So there it is from Dr Rob Ferrell
What is an absolutely incredible day for all of us
and especially for our crew on board Ns 26 Carson
kitchen Nicolina Ri Rob Ferrell Iman Jahan Gear Gene Grin
and Ephraim Rabin
It was an absolute honor to fly you to space
today
If you listening in you watching would like to follow
in the pioneering footsteps of these astronauts and purchase a
seat on a future ride to space visit Blue origin.com
and click fly to space pretty straightforward there right Keep
it easy
Your own journey to visit
The Carmen line is closer than you think
And if you would like to purchase a mission patch
to commemorate today's launch head to the blue origin shop
for patches and a lot more uh sweet gear
Here's that patch
If we can get it on screen here for today's
there you go for today's flight which is what our
astronauts who saw it on their suit that green color
and the plants ascending in spiral lines representing the living
organi uh organisms that Rob Ferre had in his experiment
The continuous loop represents Ephraim Rabin's career and supply chain
The heart represents Dr Iman Danger's career
As a cardiologist the spiral line towards space represents Eugene
Grin's passion for travel and the Children at the bottom
represent Carson kitchen and Nicoli Elrick childhood dreams to go
to space but they also represent club for the future's
mission to inspire and mobilize future generations to pursue steam
careers
Now if you wanna join us and build a road
to space we have hundreds of positions open across all
of our facilities across the US
You see it there including machinist programmers from Florida to
Alabama to uh our headquarters up in the State of
Washington
Just visit our website for more details at blue.com backslash
careers
Everybody
Thank you so much for joining us
My name is Arian Cornell Jackie
It was a pleasure to have you uh here at
the desk with me
Always a pleasure Arian and with our third webcast and
with our third future uh third Webster here the future
astronaut
Thank you so much for joining us until our next
launch grid
Adam Foor