Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket stands up at Launch Complicated 36 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida.
Preparations started in earnest a couple of hours earlier than launch, when liquid hydrogen started flowing into New Glenn’s gas tanks.
10 minutes earlier than liftoff time, the launch director will conduct a “survey,” asking folks if the rocket’s programs are prepared and if the climate situations are favorable.
The final 4 minutes earlier than launch are the “terminal countdown,” when the rocket’s laptop takes over the countdown course of.
The seven engines within the booster will ignite 5.6 seconds earlier than liftoff. This enables the pc to examine the efficiency of the engines earlier than committing to takeoff. If one thing is improper, it would shut down the engines.
If all is effectively, the clamps holding the rocket will launch and New Glenn will soar into the sky.
A decisive second will happen one minute, 39 seconds after launch, when the rocket passes what is called max-Q, when the atmospheric stress on the rocket is biggest.
If it will get by means of that second intact, the booster will likely be able to push the rocket up throughout the third minute of flight and the engines will shut down. Twelve seconds later it would disappear and 9 seconds after that the second stage engine will ignite.
Earlier than lengthy, the fairing – the 2 halves of the nostril cone defending the payload – will likely be jettisoned. At this altitude the environment is skinny sufficient that the fairing is now not wanted.
Over the subsequent couple of minutes, the booster will gentle up twice because it makes an attempt to land on a floating platform referred to as Jacklin, named after Jeff Bezos’ mom, within the Atlantic Ocean.
In the meantime, the second stage engine will proceed to run till nearly 13 minutes after launch after which shut down.
Blue Origin will then energy up a prototype of its Blue Ring house tug, testing communications, energy and laptop programs. It can stay hooked up to the second stage of the rocket.
About an hour after launch, the second stage will carry out one other engine burn to propel it right into a excessive elliptical orbit, approaching inside 1,500 miles of Earth and spinning as much as 12,000 miles away. That is a lot greater than launches in low Earth orbit, a number of hundred miles up.
In an interview Sunday, Jeff Bezos, the founding father of Blue Origin, mentioned the orbit would permit testing of communications programs at all kinds of altitudes. “And that places the automobile in a really extreme radiation surroundings, which we additionally wish to check,” he mentioned.
Then, nearly six hours after launch, the mission will likely be over. The rocket stage and Blue Ring programs will likely be secured and shut down and proceed their elliptical orbit. Few different satellites occupy this area, making the possibilities of it colliding with the rest slim.
“It is being thrown away,” Mr. Bezos mentioned.
