Captain Gopichand Thotakura, along with five others are set to fly to the edge of space on Blue Origin's crewed flight mission. The launch window by billionaire Jeff Bezos-owned space venture for the 11-minute flight opens at 6.30 a.m. PT (7 p.m. India time).
"We're 'Go' to proceed to launch, on Sunday, May 19. The #NS25 launch window opens from Launch Site One in West Texas," the company posted on X social media platform.
The reusable New Shepard rocket is set to take the six-person crew to space above the Karman line which is an internationally recognised boundary of space that lies 100 km above the Earth's surface.
It's been more than two since Blue Origin's last crewed flight.
The six travellers include 90-year-old Ed Dwight, Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller and Thotakura.
With this mission, Thotakura will become the second Indian to visit space, after Rakesh Sharma's journey aboard Russian Soyuz T-11 in 1984.
After Sharma, three people of Indian origin reached space -- Kalpana Chawla (1997), Sunita Williams (2006), and Raja Chari (2021) as NASA astronauts.
Blue Origin's NS-25 mission is set to lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas in the US.
The company has undertaken six human flight missions to date and launched 31 people to the Karman line.
When we speak of technology, it is something which keeps evolving. Recently, NASA shared that they are planning to build railway station, which will run on the Moon. NASA has been venturing to establish the first fully operational railway station on the Moon which will aim to facilitate reliable and efficient payload transport across the lunar surface. This initiative comes up as part of broader efforts to expand lunar exploration and establish functional lunar bases.
NASA's proposed system, which has been named 'Flexible Levitation on a Track' (FLOAT), introduces magnetic levitation technology over a flexible film track structure. Unlike conventional trains, these FLOAT robots will employ unpowered magnetic levitation, utilising diamagnetic levitation to passively float over tracks.
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Inputs from IANS
