A month after New Shepard’s first flight carrying people into space, a science flight without crew onboard has launched from Blue Origin’s facility near Van Horn, Texas. The flight, the fourth of the year for the New Shepard program, was originally scheduled for August 25 2021, but was delayed due to a payload integration issue.
New Shepard flight NS-17 lifted off on Thursday, August 26 at 09:31 CDT local time (14:31 UTC) — after two unplanned holds — on a suborbital trajectory with an apogee over 100 kilometers, the boundary to space as recognized by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
The launch trajectory, therefore, also passed the 80-kilometer mark, which is the altitude recognized by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), NASA, and the United States Air Force as a boundary beyond which astronaut wings are granted and space begins.
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