New Shepard’s Crewed NS-25 Mission Targets Liftoff on May 19
Blue Origin announced today its seventh human flight, NS-25, will lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas on Sunday, May 19. The launch window opens at 8:30 AM CDT / 1330 UTC. The webcast on BlueOrigin.com will start at T-40 minutes.

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Additionally, Blue Origin released the NS-25 mission patch. A few of the symbols embedded include:

The Gemini spacecraft represents Ed Dwight’s aerospace training era. The hand lifting the crew capsule is a nod to his extensive artwork.

The sunrise represents Mason Angel and Carol Schaller’s desire to experience the overview effect.

The mountains symbolize Carol Schaller, Gopi Thotakura, and Sylvain Chiron’s passion for climbing and skiing.

The crew capsule’s leaf design reflects the groundbreaking family heritage software Kenneth L. Hess developed.

NS-25 Mission Crew

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New Shepard’s 25th Mission Includes America’s First Black Astronaut Candidate
April 4, 2024

Blue Origin today revealed the six-person crew flying on its NS-25 mission. The crew includes Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, Gopi Thotakura, and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight, who was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate but was never granted the opportunity to fly to space.
Meet the Crew
Ed Dwight

In 1961, Ed was chosen by President John F. Kennedy to enter training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS), an elite U.S. Air Force flight training program known as a pathway for entering the NASA Astronaut Corps. In 1963, after successfully completing the ARPS program, Ed was recommended by the U.S. Air Force for the NASA Astronaut Corps but ultimately was not among those selected. He entered private life in 1966 and spent a decade as an entrepreneur before dedicating his life’s work to using sculpture as a medium to tell the story of Black history. He’s spent the last five decades creating large-scale monuments of iconic Black figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, among many others. His more than 130 public works are installed in museums and public spaces across the U.S. and Canada. Ed was born in 1933 and raised in Kansas City, KS.

Ed’s seat is sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit changing global perspectives by democratizing access to space for all of humanity, with additional support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation.

Mason Angel

Mason is the founder of Industrious Ventures, a venture capital fund supporting early-stage companies that enable or progress new industrial revolutions. Mason is an active member in his family’s foundation and will use this mission to inspire children and advance partnerships with nonprofits focused on STEM in early education. He spends his free time skiing or hiking in the Rocky Mountains and can often be found with his dog Leo, named for low Earth orbit.

Sylvain Chiron

Sylvain is the founder of the Brasserie Mont Blanc, one of the largest craft breweries in France. Sylvain was born in the French Alps and is a lifelong aviator and skier. He earned his pilot’s license at age 16. After spending several summers in Florida taking additional flying lessons and watching Space Shuttle launches, Sylvain entered mandatory service in the French military, where he served as a ski instructor for the French Air Force and NATO pilots. Following the military, he pursued an international MBA at Temple University and moved to Tokyo to study business in Japan. Sylvain and his family are based in Savoy, France, where he’s also involved in philanthropy focused on children’s education and nature preservation.

Kenneth L. Hess

Ken is a software engineer and entrepreneur who shaped today’s technology-based family history industry when he developed the Family Tree Maker product line in the 1990s. The company was acquired by Ancestry.com in 2003. In 2001, Ken gave back by founding Science Buddies, a K-12 nonprofit created to level the playing field and improve STEM literacy by inspiring students through free, personalized, hands-on projects in all areas of science, including space exploration. Science Buddies has reached one-quarter billion users. Ken’s lifelong passion for space exploration is in his DNA, with numerous early American pioneers in his mother’s lineage and many engineers and technicians in his father’s.

Carol Schaller

Carol is a retired CPA. In 2017, her doctor told her she would likely go blind. She has since traveled to 25 countries around the world, visited Mount Everest Base Camp, trekked to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda to see mountain gorillas, visited the South Pole, and camped in a tent in the desolate Antarctic plain at -20 degrees. Seeing Earth’s thin layer of atmosphere in the blackness of space will fulfill a lifelong dream. Carol and her husband of 40 years live on a farm in Lumberville, PA, with a view of the stars, two cows, 100 chickens, a dog, and a dancing parrot.

Gopi Thotakura

Gopi is a pilot and aviator who learned how to fly before he could drive. He’s co-founder of Preserve Life Corp, a global center for holistic wellness and applied health located near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In addition to flying jets commercially, Gopi pilots bush, aerobatic, and seaplanes, as well as gliders and hot air balloons, and has served as an international medical jet pilot. A lifelong traveler, his most recent adventure took him to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Gopi is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Each astronaut will carry a postcard to space on behalf of Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future. This program gives students access to space on Blue Origin’s rockets, including an all-digital method to create and send postcards, which can be found here. The Club’s mission is to inspire and mobilize future generations to pursue careers in STEAM for the benefit of Earth.

From an environmental standpoint, nearly 99% of New Shepard’s dry mass is reused, including the booster, capsule, engine, landing gear, and parachutes. New Shepard’s engine is fueled by highly efficient liquid oxygen and hydrogen. During flight, the only byproduct is water vapor with no carbon emissions.

The flight date will be announced soon.

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-ns-25-mission-announcement

Follow Blue Origin on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, and YouTube, and sign up on BlueOrigin.com to stay current on all mission details. 

About Blue Origin

Blue Origin is a private aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000. With its headquarters in Kent, Washington, Blue Origin aims to make space travel more accessible and sustainable. The company’s mission is centered around developing technologies to enable human colonization of space and to protect the Earth by shifting heavy industry to space.

Source: Blue Origin

https://stmdailynews.com/category/science

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PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla., April 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — On April 4, 2024, Vista Residential Partners, a national multifamily development firm headquartered in Atlanta, GA received City of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., approval for luxury 221-unit multifamily development, to be known as Gardens Vista Apartments.  

Located at the intersection of Central and Victoria Falls Boulevards, Gardens Vista will sit on 16 acres of the more than 50-acre tract of land known as Cimarron Cove. The community is in the heart of Palm Beach Gardens and lies within 0.5 miles of I-95, and less than 1.5 miles from PGA Blvd and Gardens Mall.

The Mediterranean-style complex will include 131 one-bedroom, 72 two-bedroom, and 18 three-bedroom apartments. Community amenities feature two pickleball courts, resort style swimming pool, more than one acre of walking trails, spacious gym, interactive game room, golf simulators, co-working space, 24/7 package concierge, vehicle charging stations, and a dog park. Designed by Niles Bolton Associates, the apartments will include stainless steel appliances, 9-foot ceilings, wood plank flooring, in-unit washer and dryers, and much more.Vista has agreed to include 10% of its units to comply with the City’s workforce housing requirement. This aligns with Vista’s corporate commitment to provide workforce housing with attainable rents for those who want to live, work, and play in a well-planned community with modern units and top of the line amenities. According to Vista’s CEO, Eduardo de Guardiola, the approval is the culmination of a two year effort and collaboration between Vista and its consultants, which include Urban Design Studio, Kimley Horn & Associates, Niles Bolton Architects, all of whom worked extensively and alongside the City’s Planning and Zoning Staff to create a development plan that won unanimous approval from the City’s staff and City Council, as well as its neighboring homeowner association.About Vista Residential Partners: Vista Residential Partners was founded in 2000 by Eduardo de Guardiola, an industry veteran with over 30 years of experience in multifamily investments. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Vista Residential Partners has 9 regional offices nationwide with a focus on the acquisition, development, and construction of multifamily and mixed-use communities. Its development pipeline consists of over 5,500 units nationwide, having an aggregate value in excess of $1.5 Billion Dollars.

SOURCE Vista Residential Partners

NASA is hosting a media call at 3 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 15, to discuss the agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission, which aims to improve life on Earth by studying heat loss from Earth’s polar regions and provide information on our changing climate.

The first of two shoebox-sized satellites is targeted to launch aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket no earlier than Wednesday, May 22. The launch date for the second satellite will be announced shortly after the launch of the first satellite.

Earth absorbs a lot of energy from the Sun at the tropics. Weather and ocean currents move that heat energy toward the poles, where the heat radiates upward into space. Much of that heat is in far-infrared wavelengths and has never been systematically measured. The data from PREFIRE will address this knowledge gap for the benefit of all by improving predictions of climate change and sea level rise.

The audio-only teleconference streamed live on the agency’s website.

Participants include:

• Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Mary White, project manager, PREFIRE, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Southern California
• Tristan L’Ecuyer, principal investigator, PREFIRE, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Peter Beck, CEO and founder, Rocket Lab

To participate by telephone, media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the call, to Elizabeth Vlock at: elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov.

For more information about NASA’s PREFIRE mission, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/prefire

https://stmdailynews.com/category/science

Source: NASA