Jane Edwards
Blue Origin has filed an airspace restriction notice with the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct spaceflight operations this week at its test site near Van Horn, Texas, Spaceflight Now reported Sunday.
The notice to airmen could mark the initial test flight of the Blue Origin-built third New Shepard booster as the company eyes a suborbital launch by the end of 2017 and aims to send humans into space by late 2018.
New Shepard is a reusable suborbital vehicle designed to transport a crew capsule into space higher than 62 miles in altitude or beyond the Karman line.
The space vehicle works to generate approximately 110,000 pounds of thrust and has a BE-3 engine that runs on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants.
Blue Origin’s spaceflight operations activity will last for four days and is set to kick off Monday, according to the notice.
Blue Origin retired the second vehicle after it conducted a rocket failure flight test in October 2016.
The Kent, Washington-based company founded by Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos also plans to launch a multi-stage rocket system – New Glenn – from Cape Canaveral in Florida by 2020, the report added.
