What time will William Shatner launch into space on Blue Origin's New Shepard?
The flight is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 13.
Update: Blue Origin successfully launched its second crewed flight with four passengers aboard, including the actor who famously played Captain Kirk in the original "Star Trek." Read our full story here.
Live updates
Jeff Bezos' private spaceflight company Blue Origin will launch its second crewed space mission with William Shatner on Wednesday (Oct. 13).
After a 24-hour delay due to high winds at Blue Origin's launch site near Van Horn, Texas, the New Shepard rocket is now scheduled to lift off at 10 a.m. EDT (9 a.m. local time; 1400 GMT), Blue Origin announced on Tuesday (Oct. 12).
This new targeted launch time is 30 minutes later than Blue Origin had originally planned to launch. "The shift in launch target is due to forecasted winds at vehicle rollout," Blue Origin officials said in a statement Tuesday. "Weather currently looks good for launch."
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The 11-minute flight will launch Shatner and three crewmates above the 62-mile (100 kilometers) Kármán line, which is an internationally recognized boundary of space.
After a few minutes of weightlessness, the New Shepard capsule will return to Earth, capping the mission with a parachute-assisted landing at Blue Origin's West Texas facility. The New Shepard rocket will separate from the capsule before the crew reaches their maximum altitude, and it will touch down separately a few minutes before the capsule.
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Blue Origin will provide a live broadcast of the launch and landing beginning about 90 minutes before liftoff, or 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) if the mission remains on schedule.
You can watch the launch live here on Space.com, courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company's YouTube.
Time (CDT) | T +/- | Event |
---|---|---|
7:30 a.m. | T-90 minutes | Webcast begins |
8:15 a.m. | T-45 minutes | Crew leaves the Astronaut Training Center |
8:35 a.m. | T-35 minutes | Crew ascends the launch tower |
8:36 a.m. | T-24 minutes | Hatch closed |
9 a.m. | T-0 | Liftoff |
9:08 a.m. | T+8 minutes | New Shepard booster lands |
9:11 a.m. | T+11 minutes | Crew lands |
9:22 a.m. | T+22 minutes | Hatch opens |
9:30 a.m. | T+30 minutes | Webcast ends |
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Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.