Blue Origin counts down to high-altitude escape test of New Shepard spaceship
News Brief: Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, says it’ll push its New Shepard suborbital spaceship “to its limits” during its ninth flight test, scheduled for as early as Wednesday. In a tweet, the company said it would conduct a high-altitude escape motor test to check the procedure for an emergency late in the flight sequence. Blue Origin promises to provide a live webcast from its West Texas launch site. So far, flight tests have been conducted autonomously, without a crew. But the Kent, Wash.-based company says it’s aiming to start sending people on quick trips to the edge of space by the end of the year.