Blue Origin's Crucial 'In-Flight Escape Test' Today: What to Expect

Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company led by billionaire Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, plans to launch a critical safety test of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle today (Oct. 5). If all goes according to plan, the New Shepard capsule will zoom away from its rocket shortly after liftoff from Blue Origin's west Texas test site, showing how it would get passengers to safety in the event of a real-life launch emergency. Blue Origin is developing New Shepard — which consists of a capsule and a rocket, both of which are reusable — to take people and/or scientific experiments on brief trips to suborbital space.