A significant milestone in suborbital spaceflight was achieved by Blue Origin with the launch of its uncrewed NS-29 mission. The New Shepard rocket lifted off from the company’s West Texas facility on February 4 at 11 a.m. EST, following a week-long delay caused by adverse weather conditions and a technical issue in the rocket’s avionics system. The booster and capsule both returned to Earth successfully, though one of the capsule’s three parachutes did not fully deploy. Blue Origin stated during the live broadcast that the capsule was engineered to land safely with fewer than three parachutes.

Lunar Gravity Simulated for Research Payloads

According to reports, the NS-29 mission introduced a lunar gravity simulation for the first time using the New Shepard vehicle. The capsule achieved this by rotating approximately 11 times per minute for a duration of two minutes, a manoeuvre facilitated by its reaction-control thrusters. The mission carried 30 research payloads, with 29 focused on lunar-related technologies. Blue Origin outlined six key research areas, including in-situ resource utilisation, dust mitigation, advanced habitation systems, sensors and instrumentation, small spacecraft technologies, and entry, descent, and landing systems.

NASA-Supported Research Aboard the Flight

More than half of the payloads were backed by NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program. The U.S. space agency is engaged in efforts to establish a long-term human presence on and around the Moon through the Artemis programme. A NASA experiment named the Electrostatic Dust Lofting project examined how lunar dust becomes electrically charged and lifted under ultraviolet light exposure. Another NASA-supported study, the Lunar-g Combustion Investigation, explored fire behaviour under the Moon’s gravity conditions to enhance safety measures for future lunar habitats.

Future Applications of Gravity Simulation

In an X(formerly Twitter) post, Blue Origin Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp stated that this capability provides NASA and other lunar technology developers with a cost-effective method to conduct research. He added that New Shepard’s gravity simulation could be adapted for Mars and other celestial bodies, expanding its potential for future space exploration research.

Uncontrolled space debris entering the Earth’s atmosphere has become a rising concern, with potential risks to aircraft. The probability of an impact remains low, but the consequences could be severe. Recent incidents have highlighted the issue, prompting authorities to take precautionary measures. During a recent spaceflight, debris from SpaceX’s Starship 7 fell into the Atlantic Ocean, leading to temporary airspace restrictions near the Turks and Caicos Islands. Aircraft were delayed, and some were diverted due to low fuel while awaiting clearance. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandated an investigation into the mishap, citing safety concerns associated with falling debris.

Study Highlights Rising Collision Risk

According to a study published in Scientific Reports, an increasing number of reentries combined with rising air traffic have escalated the risk. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of British Columbia, examined the probability of space debris affecting busy airspaces. Ewan Wright, a researcher involved in the study, told Inside Outer Space that an uncontrolled reentry has a 26 percent chance of occurring in heavily trafficked regions such as the Northeastern United States or Northern Europe annually. Authorities have previously closed airspace in response to reentry events, but such measures cause economic strain and operational disruptions.

Impact on Airspace and Economic Consequences

As reported by space.com, the researchers, including Aaron Boley and Michael Byers, stated that the likelihood of collision increases in areas with high air traffic density. The decision to shut down airspace for safety reasons has repercussions, as delays and diversions result in financial losses. In 2022, European authorities implemented temporary airspace closures, demonstrating the trade-off between aviation safety and economic efficiency.

Future Challenges in Managing Reentries

Authorities face a dilemma in balancing safety and operational efficiency. The study suggests that controlled reentries over oceans could mitigate risks, but thousands of rocket bodies remain in orbit, set to reenter unpredictably over the coming decades. Airspace management will require continued adaptation to address the ongoing challenges posed by space debris.

Google aims to release commercial quantum computing applications within five years, Google’s head of quantum told Reuters on Wednesday, in a challenge to Nvidia’s predictions of a 20-year wait.

“We’re optimistic that within five years we’ll see real-world applications that are possible only on quantum computers,” founder and lead of Google Quantum AI Hartmut Neven said in a statement.

Real-world applications Google has discussed are related to materials science – applications such as building superior batteries for electric cars – creating new drugs and potentially new energy alternatives.

Google’s prediction arrives amid wider uncertainty about when such a breakthrough will occur. Predictions from investors and experts range from several years to at least two decades.

For decades, scientists have been discussing quantum computing, which promises to deliver machines that are thousands of times more powerful than traditional computers. Traditional computers process information one number at a time, whereas quantum computers use “qubits” that can represent several numbers at once.

Governments and businesses have kept a close eye on quantum computing’s potential to disrupt modern cybersecurity and other fields such as finance and healthcare.

Quantum computing resembles Artificial Intelligence (AI) in some ways. AI before ChatGPT’s launch in 2022 was understood mostly by scientists. Scientists had been quietly producing breakthroughs to accelerate the field but there was no firm understanding of when AI would be commercially useful.

Two Decades Out

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has said that quantum computing is much farther away than five years. At an analyst event at the CES trade show in Las Vegas in January, Huang predicted practical uses for quantum computers are about 20 years away.

“If you kind of said 15 years… that’d probably be on the early side,” Huang said, “If you said 30, it’s probably on the late side. But if you picked 20, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it.”

Huang’s comments ripped about $8 billion in market value from a handful of quantum computing stocks. The sector was given a boost in December when Google announced it had cracked a key challenge in the field with its new chips.

Google has been working on its quantum computing program since 2012 and has designed and built several quantum chips. By using quantum processors, Google said it had managed to solve a computing problem in minutes that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.

Google’s quantum computing scientists announced another step on the path to real world applications within five years on Wednesday.

In a paper published in the scientific journal Nature, the scientists said they had discovered a new approach to quantum simulation, which is a step on the path to achieving Google’s objective.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)