Watch: what it looks like to fly to the edge of space and back in a Blue Origin vehicle

Blue Origin recently made a successful flight in a new model of the "New Shepard" space vehicle, which will launch passengers to the frontier of space in suborbital flights in the future. The space company has now given us a glimpse of the fascinating experience that the spacecraft will provide them, with full documentation of the flight, from the point of view of a test mannequin placed inside. Watch the video:

The company Blue Origin, which was founded by the owner and CEO of Amazon, and the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, performed on Monday (December 12) Another successful flight in the space vehicle "New Shepard", named after the first American astronaut, Alan Shepherd. Now, the company is providing us with a fascinating glimpse of the flight experience future space tourists will pay for (Blue Origin has not yet started selling tickets to the spacecraft, and has not disclosed how much it intends to charge for them).

Yesterday (Thursday), the company published full documentation of the flight, which lasted 10 minutes and 6 seconds, from the moment of launch to the descent. The video documents the flight from the point of view of the test dummy that stayed in the capsule, which Blue Origin calls "Skywalker". The doll was equipped with sensors designed to test how the flight would affect humans. Since there was a belt during the entire flight, it is not possible to distinguish in the video when exactly the moments of weightlessness occur, which the spacecraft will provide to its future passengers.

Instead of mannequins, Blue Origin plans to send flesh-and-blood humans in its spacecraft in the future, with the first manned flight Planned For 2019, after the completion of the vehicle testing program.

The "New Shepard" consists of two stages - the propulsion unit, i.e. the rocket launcher, and the space capsule that is placed on top of it, which is designed to accommodate up to six space tourists, or scientific experiments. The vehicle is intended for performance Suborbital flights - that is, those that reach only the recognized official border of space at an altitude of 100 km (Kerman line), without entering orbit around the Earth. In the documented test, the New Shepard reached a height of 99 km, and a maximum speed of Mach 2.94 at takeoff.

The vehicle is completely multi-purpose - the vehicle's launcher makes a vertical landing using its rocket engine, while the capsule detaches from it and lands using parachutes.

The experiment on Monday was the seventh of the number of the New Shepard, and used a new and improved model of the vehicle, whose capsule was equipped for the first time with huge windows to provide a panoramic viewing experience for the future space tourists who will fly it to the edge of space.

In addition to the video from inside the spacecraft, the company's founder, billionaire Jeff Bezos, posted another video on his Twitter page showing the company's "robot landing gear", known as "Blue2D2" (after R2-D2, another reference to "Star Wars") although it is not clear from the video what exactly is the role of the robot, which is seen walking around the launcher, after it landed back at the end of the launch.

First use of our landing pad bot #Blue2D2. @blueorigin pic.twitter.com/Ht2P7yVwEs

- Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 15, 2017

See more on the subject on the science website:

• Blue Origin reveals a huge launcher that will compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9
• Blue Origin succeeded for the first time in the history of the space program in safely landing a reusable space launcher
• Delivery service to the moon: Blue Origin offers to build a lander to deliver supplies to a manned base on the moon