Video: Preview briefing on NASA’s CYGNSS mission to improve hurricane forecasting

Learn about the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System — NASA’s fleet of hurricane-tracking satellites — launching together on Dec. 12 from Cape Canaveral aboard a Pegasus rocket. The eight small satellites comprising the CYGNSS constellation will help improve hurricane intensity, track and storm surge forecasts.

This NASA news conference held Nov. 10 details the CYGNSS mission and its science objectives.

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Atlas 5 rocket to launch space station cargo delivery mission in March

File photo of Atlas 5 launch. Credit: ULA

CAPE CANAVERAL — Calling on the Atlas 5 rocket to flex its muscles one more time, Orbital ATK will partner with United Launch Alliance once again to send a massive load of supplies to the International Space Station astronauts early next year.

In what becomes the first rocket flight booked under ULA’s new RapidLaunch contracting service to substantially shorten the time between signing a contract and liftoff, this new launch is scheduled to occur just four months from now.

The Atlas 5 will launch the Cygnus cargo freighter to the station in March, departing from Cape Canaveral on Orbital ATK’s commercial OA-7 cargo-delivery mission.

“This plan…allows NASA to again capitalize on the operational flexibility built into Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft to assure the space station receives a steady and uninterrupted flow of vital supplies, equipment and scientific experiments,” Orbital ATK said in a statement today.

It will be the third such launch for the rocket and automated ship, following successes last December and this past March, as part of Orbital ATK’s space station resupply contract issued by NASA to ensure a steady supply line to the station from U.S. soil.

But with NASA’s other commercial delivery firm — the SpaceX fleet and Dragon capsules — currently grounded and having already missed a planned November cargo run, the agency is relying on Orbital ATK, the Russians and Japanese to bring the needed food, clothing, spare parts and experiments to the space station.

The new Atlas 5 launch will enable Orbital ATK to deliver a heavier load of cargo and NASA believes in the dependability of the rocket.

“Following a successful Antares launch for the recent OA-5 Commercial Resupply Services mission and subsequent rendezvous and berthing of the Cygnus spacecraft with the International Space Station, Orbital ATK has responded to NASA’s needs for enhanced schedule assurance for cargo deliveries and maximum capacity of critical supplies to the space station in 2017 by once again partnering with United Launch Alliance to launch Cygnus aboard an Atlas 5 for the upcoming OA-7 mission in the spring timeframe,” Orbital ATK said in a statement today.

“The company will be ready to support three cargo resupply missions to the station next year, and will work with NASA to finalize the flight schedule.”

Cygnus at the space station. Credit: NASA

A Cygnus reached the station last month with over 5,000 pounds of supplies after launching atop Orbital ATK’s own Antares rocket. It was the first such flight for the booster in two years, a lull instigated by the 2014 explosion of an Antares and Orbital ATK’s decision to replace the main engines with a different design.

But the more-powerful Atlas 5 rocket can launch over 7,700 pounds of provisions inside a Cygnus, and the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday night that NASA has pushed Orbital ATK to buy another Atlas 5 for its greater lift capacity and reliability record.

Sources told Spaceflight Now that the Atlas 5 would launch the OA-7 mission in March and that Orbital ATK was working with Kennedy Space Center to book facility time to process the Cygnus.

It was not immediately clear if NASA or Orbital ATK would pay for the extra costs associated with the Atlas 5 rocket.

Orbital ATK is under contract to deliver over 63,000 pounds of supplies to the space station via 10 missions through 2018. A follow-on contract has awarded a minimum of six missions through 2024.

“Orbital ATK’s remaining missions to be conducted in 2017 and 2018 under the CRS-1 contract will launch aboard the company’s Antares rockets from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia,” the company statement says.

Atlas 5 was the gap-filler during Orbital ATK’s Antares problem period, prompting the firm to buy one, then two ULA rockets to fulfill its obligations to the space station program.

Flown 65 times since 2002, the Atlas 5 has performed 25 flights dedicated to the Defense Department, 14 commercial missions, 13 for the National Reconnaissance Office and 13 for NASA.

The new Cygnus launch will be accommodated by ULA’s plan to bolster its vehicle production and create more launch opportunities on the manifest. A spring launch slot was available for Orbital ATK to reserve on short notice.

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Japanese weather observatory successfully boosted into orbit

The H-2A rocket set to launch with the Himawari 9 weather satellite rolled out to its launch pad at the Tanegashima Space Center on Tuesday. Credit: MHI

A sophisticated new Japanese weather satellite will ride an H-2A rocket into orbit Wednesday to start a 15-year mission tracking cyclones and helping meteorologists predict storm movements across the Asia-Pacific and Australia.

The Himawari 9 weather observatory is set to begin its trek to geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth on Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center, a spaceport nestled on the southern flank of Tanegashima Island in southern Japan.

Himawari 9 is the second of two identical weather satellites owned by the Japan Meteorological Agency to offer more detailed and more timely imagery of storms, clouds and other weather systems to forecasters in Japan and across the Western Pacific.

Liftoff of the 174-foot-tall (53-meter) H-2A rocket, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is set for 0620 GMT (2:20 a.m. EDT) Wednesday at the opening of a launch window that extends until 0918 GMT (5:18 a.m. EDT).

Launch is set for 3:20 p.m. Japan Standard Time, and it will take nearly a half-hour for the H-2A rocket to place Himawari 9 into an initial geostationary transfer orbit, an egg-shaped loop around Earth with a high point of 22,354 miles (35,976 kilometers), a low point of 155 miles (250 kilometers) and a tilt of 22.4 degrees to the equator.

Japanese officials delayed the launch 24 hours due to a poor weather forecast that could have prevented rollout of the H-2A rocket from its integration hangar Monday.

The weather improved Tuesday, and ground crews at Tanegashima rolled out the H-2A rocket on its mobile launch table around 1630 GMT (12:30 p.m. EDT). The 1,600-foot (500-meter) journey from the vertical assembly building to the launch pad took about 40 minutes to complete, and technicians planned to plug the launch platform into ground electrical and propellant supplies before fueling begins in the final hours of the countdown.

Once the launch team checks out the rocket’s systems and loads it with cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, an automated countdown sequencer will take over the final steps before liftoff.

The H-2A rocket will light its core LE-7A main engine, then ignite two strap-on solid rocket boosters to climb away from the launch pad atop nearly 1.4 million pounds of thrust.

The rocket’s flight computer will command the engine and booster nozzles to pivot moments after liftoff, directing the launcher on an easterly trajectory over the Pacific Ocean.

The H-2A will exceed the speed of sound in less than a minute, then the two solid rocket boosters will consume all their pre-packed propellant at T+plus 1 minute, 38 seconds. Ten seconds later, the boosters will fall away from the H-2A’s foam-covered core stage.

The two halves of the rocket’s clamshell-like nose cone will peel away at an altitude of 88 miles (142 kilometers) at T+plus 4 minutes, 5 seconds, revealing the Himawari 9 satellite to the space environment.

The LE-7A main engine, producing nearly 250,000 pounds of thrust, will shut down at T+plus 6 minutes, 36 seconds, after reaching a velocity of nearly 11,000 mph (4.9 kilometers per second).

Eight seconds later, the first stage and second stage will separate, followed by ignition of the upper stage’s hydrogen-fueled LE-5B engine at T+plus 6 minutes, 50 seconds. The powerplant will burn until T+plus 12 minutes, 12 seconds, to reach a preliminary low-altitude parking orbit, and then start up again at T+plus 23 minutes, 50 seconds, to climb to higher altitude.

The second LE-5B engine burn should end at T+plus 27 minutes, 7 seconds, after injecting the 7,700-pound (3,500 kilogram) Himawari 9 satellite into its intended orbit.

Deployment of Himawari 9 should occur at T+plus 27 minutes, 57 seconds, around 163 miles (263 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii.

Artist’s concept of the Himawari 8 and 9 satellites in orbit. Credit: MELCO

Built by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Himawari 9 will maneuver into a circular orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,700 kilometers) over the equator a few weeks after launch.

At that altitude, the spacecraft’s orbital velocity will match the rate of Earth’s rotation, allowing it to hover over Asia and the Pacific Ocean to collect real-time views of clouds and storms over the Eastern Hemisphere.

Himawari 9 will be parked at 140 degrees east longitude for a mission expected to last up to 15 years. It is Japan’s ninth geostationary weather observatory since the first satellite in the Himawari, or sunflower, series launched in 1977.

Japan launched the identical Himawari 8 weather satellite in October 2014, and a successful launch of Himawari 9 will allow Japan’s weather agency to retire the last pair of meteorological satellites — dubbed MTSAT 1R and MTSAT 2 — that have been in space in 2005 and 2006.

Forecasters from India to Australia have been relying on Himawari 8’s imagery since it entered service in 2015.

Himawari 8 and 9 carry advanced U.S.-built imaging cameras supplied by Harris Corp. The imagers can observe Earth in 16 visible and near-infrared color bands, while the previous generation of Japanese weather satellites were sensitive to five bands.

The new satellites can take a full picture of East Asia and the Western Pacific every 10 minutes, an improvement over the half-hour update times available with Japan’s MTSAT weather satellites.

The spacecraft’s imager can take pictures of certain areas, such as all of Japan, at even faster refresh rates — every 2.5 minutes.

There are also improvements in resolution with the Himawari 8 and 9 satellites, allowing meteorologists to see finer details at the centers of typhoons and better resolve volcanic ash and smoke plumes, fog and low-lying clouds.

http://www.space.com

WATCH LIVE NOW! ExoMars Mars Landing Webcast by ESA

The European Space Agency will have live coverage of the ExoMars lander's touchdown on Mars in a series of webcasts. First, a Social TV program will cover the arrival and landing from 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) and will be off an on ahead of ESA's main program. The main program follows in two parts, one from11:44 a.m. – 12:59 p.m. EDT (1544–1659 GMT) and the other from 2:25 – 4:03 p.m. EDT (1825–2003 GMT). The webcasts are among a series of broadcasts by ESA to chronicle the ExoMars arrival. You can watch the webcast directly from ESA here and in the window below. Preview Story: High Stakes: Europe Aims for 1st Successful Mars Landing Today

ExoMars at Mars

Three days before arriving at Mars on 19 October 2016, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) will release its entry, descent and landing demonstrator, Schiaparelli, towards the Red Planet. ExoMars is several missions in one. Its orbiter is a science and relay mission. The TGO will search for evidence of gases, such as methane, that may be associated with geological or biological processes. The Schiaparelli lander is a technology demonstrator to test key technologies for future missions

Mars arrival orbits

This animation shows the relative orbital paths of ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), the Schiaparelli Entry, descent and landing Demonstrator Module and ESA's Mars Express on 19 October 2016, when TGO and Schiaparelli arrive at Mars. At the start of the animation, TGO and Schiaparelli are shown already separated, which is set to occur at 14:42 GMT (16:42 CEST) on 16 October. The animation covers the time period between approximately 12:30 GMT (14:30 CEST) and 19:00 GMT (21:00 CEST)




Schiaparelli’s descent to Mars

Visualisation of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module entering and descending through the martian atmosphere to land on Mars. Schiaparelli will enter the atmosphere at about 21 000 km/h and in less than six minutes it will use a heatshield, a parachute and thrusters to slow its descent before touching down in the Meridiani Planum region close to the equator, absorbing the final contact with a crushable structure. The entire process will take less than six minutes: 

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Antares return to flight on space station cargo mission delayed to Monday

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — The return to flight of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo spacecraft has been postponed at least a day because of a problem with ground support equipment.

Orbital ATK said about seven hours before the scheduled 8:03 p.m. Eastern launch Oct. 16 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport here that a problem with a ground support equipment cable had forced them to delay the launch by a day. There are no problems with the Antares rocket itself or the Cygnus spacecraft, the company said.

“We have spares on hand and rework procedures are in process,” Orbital ATK said in a statement. If those repairs are completed, the launch will be rescheduled to Oct. 17 at 7:40 p.m. Eastern, with a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather.

#ICYMI, @OrbitalATK launched more than 5,100 lbs of cargo to @Space_Station from @NASA_Wallops at 7:45pm ET. Watch: https://t.co/9zWsewZKtw pic.twitter.com/zFF7u9ia8y

— NASA (@NASA) 18 de octubre de 2016

The launch represents the return to flight of the Antares after an October 2014 mission that suffered an engine failure seconds after liftoff, causing the vehicle to fall back to the ground and explode. That explosion caused $15 million in damage to the launch site.

An investigation blamed the accident on an explosion in the liquid oxygen turbopump of an AJ26 engine in the rocket’s first stage. Orbital ATK decided after the failure to replace the AJ26, a Soviet-era rocket refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne, with new RD-181 engines from NPO Energomash.

That engine swap did require some other work to the rocket to accommodate the more powerful engines. That included changes to the vehicle’s structure, different control systems and additional instrumentation, said Mike Pinkston, Antares program vice president and general manager at Orbital ATK, in an Oct. 15 briefing at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility here.

“It was a very detailed, meticulous process, but as evidenced by the stage test, we got it right, and we’re ready to go,” he said, referring to a static-fire test of an Antares first stage on the pad in May.

Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems Group, said the teams were working no issues with either the Antares rocket or the Cygnus spacecraft. “I’m very optimistic,” he said, expressing no specific concerns about placing a payload on the first flight of an upgraded rocket. “We understand those changes, and we feel like all the tests have covered the risks people have been able to think of.”

A tracking station in Bermuda, forced to shut down because of a passing hurricane and thus delaying the launch by two days, is ready to support the mission. “It fared remarkably well in that weather,” said Sarah Daugherty, test director at NASA Wallops, of that tracking station. “They are green and functioning normally at this time.”

The Cygnus, named the SS Alan Poindexter after the former astronaut who died in 2012, is carrying 2,425 kilograms of cargo for the ISS. That cargo includes science experiments, crew supplies and station hardware.

Lift off! @OrbitalATK's #Antares rocket launches to deliver science & supplies to @Space_Station. Keep watching: https://t.co/KX5g7zfYQe pic.twitter.com/OIbREmBJg1

— NASA (@NASA) 17 de octubre de 2016

An Oct. 16 launch would have allowed the Cygnus to arrive at the station early Oct. 19, with berthing scheduled shortly after 7 a.m. Eastern. With the delay, though, the Cygnus will wait until after the Oct. 21 docking of a Soyuz spacecraft carrying three new ISS crew members. Joel Montalbano, NASA space station deputy manager, said that, even in a worst-case scenario, the Cygnus could loiter in orbit for more than 20 days after launch.

Montalbano also said that NASA added some cargo to the Cygnus after the Sept. 1 pad explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9, which is expected to delay the next Dragon mission to the station that was previously scheduled for November. “We originally had some ballast that we were flying on this vehicle,” he said. “We’ve removed all that ballast and replaced it with crew supplies,” including food and clothing, as well as computer hardware and “a very small amount” of extravehicular activity hardware.

The Cygnus mission will continue for several days after it departs from the space station in late November. The spacecraft will carry out the second in a series of experiments known as Saffire that test how materials burn in weightlessness. The Cygnus will also maneuver to an altitude about 45 kilometers above the ISS to deploy four Lemur cubesats for Spire, a San Francisco company developing a constellation for ship tracking and weather data collection.

The higher altitude will allow the satellites to remain in orbit far longer than if they were deployed directly from an airlock on the ISS, as many other cubesats are. “We are estimating that these cubesats will be up there for three years, versus, out of the airlock, anywhere from six months to a year,” said Henry Martin, external payloads coordinator for NanoRacks, the company that arranged the satellite deployment.

Culbertson hinted that, in addition to the scientific and other cargo on the Cygnus, there will be something extra for the station’s crew. “Every cargo mission is like Christmas, right?” he said. “They never know what they’re going to find when they open the hatch.”

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China launches Shenzhou-11 crewed spacecraft

WASHINGTON — China successfully launched its first human spaceflight mission in more than three years Oct. 16, placing into orbit a spacecraft carrying two astronauts that will dock with a new space laboratory module.

A Long March 2F spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Oct. 16 (7:30 a.m. Beijing time Oct. 17) and placed the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft into orbit. The spacecraft separated from the rocket’s upper stage and deployed its solar panels a little more than 10 minutes after liftoff.

“The rocket is flying according to its original plan, and the Shenzhou spacecraft has entered its preliminary orbit,” said Gen. Zhang Youxia, chief commander of China’s manned space program, in a statement less than a half-hour after launch. “I announce the launch of Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft is a complete success.”

On board Shenzhou-11 are astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, publicly announced as the crew less than 24 hours before the launch. Jing is a veteran astronaut, having flown on Shenzhou-7 in 2008 and Shenzhou-9 in 2012. Chen is making his first spaceflight.

Shenzhou-11 is scheduled to dock with the Tiangong-2 module Oct. 18. That module, launched Sept. 15, will host the crew for 30 days, twice as long as the existing Chinese human spaceflight endurance record, set by the Shenzhou-10 mission in June 2013. That mission was also the last Chinese human spaceflight prior to the Shenzhou-11 mission.

During the 30-day mission, Jing and Chen will carry out a number of medical and space science experiments, as well as test various systems on the Tiangong-2 module. They will also engage in public outreach activities, including serving as “special correspondents” for the state-run Xinhua news service.

The mission is part of Chinese efforts to develop a permanent space station. Chinese officials have indicated that they expect this station, consisting of several modules but smaller than the International Space Station, to be completed by the early 2020s.

Blue Origin passed the test of UN emergency space

Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, launched a dramatic flight test over West Texas on Wednesday to verify the performance of an escape system on its reusable suborbital launcher designed to loft space tourists, researchers and commercial astronauts on short rides to the edge of space.

The stubby, single-stage New Shepard rocket took off from Bezos’ ranch north of Van Horn, Texas, at 11:36 a.m. EDT (1536 GMT) Wednesday, about a half-hour later then scheduled after engineers worked out unspecified issues in the final countdown.

About 45 seconds later, at an altitude of around 16,000 feet (nearly 5,000 meters) and a velocity close to the speed of sound, a prototype crew capsule fastened to the top of the rocket fired a solid rocket motor to catapult free of the booster for a crucial in-flight test of the spacecraft’s emergency escape system, which would be triggered to whisk passengers away from an exploding launcher.

No one was inside the capsule Wednesday, but the abort demo is a major milestone toward Blue Origin’s plans to begin flying test pilots on suborbital jaunts above 62 miles (100 kilometers) — the internationally-recognized boundary of space — as soon as next year.

The four-ton capsule spun around and tumbled after the solid-fueled abort motor’s two-second firing, which propelled the vehicle several hundred away from the New Shepard rocket. Guided by reaction control system thrusters, the capsule’s motion stabilized as it deployed three drogue parachutes and three main chutes for a relatively gentle ride back to the ground, touching down at a speed of around 3 mph (5 kilometers per hour) about four minutes after liftoff.

The headless booster continued upward after the capsule was severed, defying predictions that the intense aerodynamic loads and heat from the maneuver would be too much for the rocket’s control system to overcome.

But the New Shepard’s BE-3 main engine, burning a combination of cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, swiveled to deftly direct its thrust in response to the abort motor firing, keeping the rocket on course.

The engine throttled down as programmed after the capsule jettisoned and burned for about three minutes to reach a point near the von Karman line, the edge of space, before falling back to Earth. Commentators on Blue Origin’s live webcast did not say how high the booster flew.

On the way back down, the rocket, named for Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, extended a drag brake and wedge fins to slow its velocity, then ignited its BE-3 main engine again less than 30 seconds before landing. Four legs deployed from the base of the booster, and the engine steered the vehicle over Blue Origin’s landing site near New Shepard’s launch pad.

The rocket landing occurred about seven-and-a-half minutes after launch.

The launcher Blue Origin flew Wednesday has now flown five times, dating back to its maiden launch on Nov. 23, 2015, but this mission was its last.

“What an extraordinary test and a tremendous final flight for both craft,” said Ariane Cornell, a manager on Blue Origin’s strategy and business development team, who provided commentary during the company’s webcast of Wednesday’s flight. “As we very optimistically aimed for, both our crew capsule successfully executed its in-flight escape test, and the booster brilliantly continued to space and came home for a fifth landing on our landing pad just two miles north of where it took off from.”

Blue Origin’s crew capsule fires its abort motor moments after liftoff on the New Shepard booster. Credit: Blue Origin

In an email update last month, Bezos wrote that the booster would probably not survive the test flight

“What of the booster? It’s the first ever rocket booster to fly above the Karman line into space and then land vertically upon the Earth,” Bezos wrote. “And it’s done so multiple times. We’d really like to retire it after this test and put it in a museum. Sadly, that’s not likely.”

The New Shepard’s abort system features a solid rocket motor mounted at the base of the crew capsule to push the spaceship away from the rocket to escape an emergency during launch.

Most previous human-rated space capsules, including the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft, have their abort motors on top of the rocket, where they would pull the capsule away to get out of the way if the rocket failed. But Blue Origin’s suborbital crew capsule, like commercial orbital-class spaceships being developed by SpaceX and Boeing, has a “pusher” escape system.

The advantage is the escape motor does not have to be jettisoned and thrown away after every mission, as is the case with Soyuz flights. That makes the system more reliable by removing a potential failure mode, and less expensive because the abort motor can be reused until it is needed, then discarded.

With a multimillion-dollar government funding arrangement with NASA, Blue Origin tested the escape system during a pad abort test in October 2012, demonstrating the motor’s ability to drive the capsule away from an explosion on the launch pad.

NASA no longer provides monetary support to Blue Origin’s rocket development program, but the space agency still has “unfunded” agreements to offer engineering expertise.

“This upcoming flight will be our toughest test yet,” Bezos wrote last month. “We’ll intentionally trigger an escape in flight and at the most stressing condition: maximum dynamic pressure through transonic velocities.”

A successful escape test was expected to demonstrate the abort motor’s capability to save the passengers aboard the crew capsule even during the most stressing part of the flight.

During operational crew-carrying flights, a signal from the booster’s computer, the capsule, or mission control could initiate the abort sequence.

While the abort system’s design required the crew capsule to safely land, the New Shepard booster was never designed to survive such a maneuver, according to Blue Origin.

The New Shepard booster, under the control of its BE-3 main engine, kicks up dust just before landing Wednesday. Credit: Blue Origin

If the rocket ran into trouble after the abort command, its on-board computer would have ordered the BE-3 engine to shut down, and the booster would have plummeted back to the ground and exploded on impact.

“The capsule escape motor will slam the booster with 70,000 pounds of off-axis force delivered by searing hot exhaust,” Bezos wrote. “The aerodynamic shape of the vehicle quickly changes from leading with the capsule to leading with the ring fin, and this all happens at maximum dynamic pressure. Nevertheless, the booster is very robust and our Monte Carlo simulations show there’s some chance we can fly through these disturbances and recover the booster.”

It turns out those computer simulations were right.

Blue Origin officials said they plan to put the New Shepard booster and the crew capsule on public display. New Shepard was the first vehicle to fly to space and return to Earth with a vertical, rocket-assisted landing, logging that achievement on its first flight on Nov. 23, 2015.

The successful recovery of the New Shepard last year came a month before SpaceX, a rival commercial space firm led by Elon Musk, landed a Falcon 9 first stage booster at Cape Canaveral after it sent 11 Orbcomm communications satellites toward orbit.

The Falcon 9 is larger and reached higher speeds than New Shepard, but SpaceX has not yet re-flown a first stage booster. A commercial satellite operator, SES of Luxembourg, agreed in August to put a communications satellite on the first flight of a reused Falcon 9 rocket.

The highly-anticipated launch of a “flight-proven” Falcon 9 booster was supposed to occur this month, but SpaceX’s rockets are grounded after an explosion on the launch pad in Florida on Sept. 1. SpaceX aims to resume launches as soon as mid-November, although the company’s investigation into last month’s rocket mishap is still ongoing, so the schedule could slip further.

While the launcher flown Wednesday is 5-for-5, Blue Origin lost a previous New Shepard vehicle in April 2015. That rocket failed to land after an otherwise successful launch.

A successful test Wednesday could pave the way for Blue Origin to begin flying test pilots on New Shepard launches next year, ahead of the start of commercial operations in 2018.

Cornell said Blue Origin is working on the next iteration of its suborbital crew capsule, which could begin launching on a newly-built New Shepard rocket from West Texas in early 2017. It will be outfitted with windows and other accommodations for passengers.

“We already have a couple of those capsules in process and almost complete, and those are the ones that are going to be flying next,” Cornell said.

Blue Origin last month revealed the basic design of a larger orbital-class booster named New Glenn, after Mercury astronaut John Glenn, that could begin flying by the end of the decade. It will be propelled by a set of larger methane-burning BE-4 engines Blue Origin is currently testing on the ground.

United Launch Alliance has also tapped Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine as the preferred powerplant for its next-generation Vulcan rocket, which will replace the company’s existing Atlas and Delta rocket fleet.

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