Watch Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin perform a risky rocket test during the company's first live webcast Sunday
On Sunday, the Jeff Bezos-backed spaceflight company Blue Origin will air a test launch of their space system live for the first time online.
This will mark the fourth time this particular New Shepard rocket and capsule have flown a test flight.
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The actual test is expected to start at 10:15 a.m. ET Sunday, with the webcast itself beginning about 30 minutes earlier, at 9:45 a.m. ET. You can watch the launch in the window below or directly through Blue Origin.
"Watching a rocket launch (and rocket landing!) might add a little extra fun with the kids on Father’s Day — enjoy," Bezos wrote in an announcement of the launch.
This test will be Blue Origin's biggest challenge yet.
The company will purposefully make one of the capsule's parachutes fail during the craft's descent back to Earth after flight. In theory, the capsule should be able to land safely — if not slightly harder — with just two parachutes.
"Works on paper, and this test is designed to validate that," Bezos said. "We’ll also use this flight to continue pushing the envelope on the booster. As always, this is a development test flight and anything can happen."
The company's three other previous launches all appeared to go off without a hitch, bringing the New Shepard rocket up to suborbital space and back to the launch site in Texas safely.
One day, Blue Origin plans to launch people to suborbital space with New Shepard, taking paying customers about 62 miles up where they can see the Earth against black space and even feel weightlessness for minutes.
Image: blue origin
Bezos has said on multiple occasions that he hopes to see millions of people living and working in space some day in the far future, and he thinks there's a role for Blue Origin in making that goal a reality.
The company is working to create a fleet of reusable rockets that can launch people and payloads to suborbital space. Blue Origin is also developing a larger rocket to launch to orbit. Reusable rockets could greatly reduce the cost of flying to space, making it easier for people to fly objects to orbit and maybe beyond.
This live webcast could also mark a serious change for the usually secretive spaceflight company.
Usually Blue Origin only announces its launches after they occur, but now, people around the world will be able to watch every triumph and failure during the risky test.
