New Shephard Rocket System Designed
Source : Indian Express
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Why in News ?
Space company called Blue Origin concluded the online auction for the first seat on New Shephard a rocket system meant to take tourists to space.
Key Facts
- Over 7,600 people registered from 159 countries to bid for this seat which ultimately went for a winning bid of $28 million.
- New Shephard completed its seventh test launch successfully in October 2020 when it took off from Texas.
Blue Origin
- One of the ten companies selected by NASA to conduct studies and advance technologies to collect, process and use space-based resources for missions to the Moon and Mars.
- In 2019, both signed an agreement that gives Blue Origin permission to use NASA’s historic test stand, as a part of a growing number of partnerships between the space agency and the commercial space industry.
New Shephard Rocket System Designed
- Named after astronaut Alan Shephard the first American to go to space and offers flights to space over 100 km above the Earth and accommodation for payloads.
- It is a rocket system that has been designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Karman line the internationally recognized boundary of space.
- The idea is to provide easier and more cost-effective access to space meant for purposes such as academic research, corporate technology development and entrepreneurial ventures among others.
- Apart from its academic and research-oriented goal, New Shephard will also allow space tourists to experience microgravity by taking them 100 km above the Earth.
Space Tourism Concept
- To go to space for recreational, leisure or business purposes.
- The idea is to make space more accessible to those individuals who are not astronauts and want to go to space for non-scientific purposes.
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