Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: Blue Origin

Blue Origin is set to debuts its second human-rated suborbital tourism vehicle – named RSS Kármán line.

An uncrewed verification flight window opens on Monday, October 7 at 8:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time.

New Shepard (NS-27) will fly 12 payloads—five on the booster and seven inside the crew capsule. The vehicle is designed to enable “expanded flight capacity to better meet growing customer demand,” according to a Blue Origin statement.

Image credit: Amaranthine Books/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Black monoliths

One commercial payload to be carried is a reproduction of black monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The monoliths are flying on behalf of Spacemanic for a special edition printed by Croatian publisher Amaranthine Books.

Also onboard the uncrewed test flight, a new navigation systems developed for New Shepard and the Blue Origin New Glenn booster; two different LIDAR sensors for the Lunar Permanence program; and ultra-wideband proximity operations sensors flying as part of a NASA TechFlights grant with Blue Origin’s Space Systems Development group.

Last August Blue Origin completed its 26th mission to suborbital space with six crew onboard. It was its eighth human spaceflight and the 26th flight for the New Shepard program.

The upcoming test flight will be webcast, starting 15 minutes before liftoff on: https://www.blueorigin.com/