"Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos, is suspending the short flights of its suborbital New Shepard spacecraft, which took paying customers to the edge of space and back. Since its first human launch in July 2021, New Shepard's space tourism flights have carried 98 people above the Karman line the widely-accepted boundary of space about 62 miles above the Earth and safely back again in a capsule."
"The company says the pause, which will last at least two years, will allow Blue Origin to dedicate more time and money to developing its human lunar landing capabilities. NASA awarded Blue Origin a $3.4 billion contract to develop a spacecraft that could take humans to the surface of the moon. NASA's Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, and is working with commercial space companies to develop the hardware."
Blue Origin is pausing New Shepard suborbital tourist flights for at least two years to reallocate time and funding toward development of a human lunar lander. New Shepard completed its first human flight in July 2021 and carried 98 people above the Karman line on ten-minute roundtrip missions from west Texas, including paying customers and several celebrities. NASA awarded Blue Origin a $3.4 billion contract to build a spacecraft intended for lunar surface landings as part of the Artemis program. SpaceX is developing Starship for the first two landing missions, and Blue Origin is slated to provide a vehicle for the third. Artemis II must fly and return successfully before crewed lunar landings proceed; that mission faces schedule pressure from cold-weather delays to a prelaunch test.
Read at www.npr.org
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