OWC Travels to Space and Back with Blue Origin New Shepard Mission

Send us a Topic or Tip

Have a suggestion for the blog? Perhaps a topic you'd like us to write about? If so, we'd love to hear from you! Fancy yourself a writer and have a tech tip, handy computer trick, or "how to" to share? Let us know what you'd like to contribute!

Envoy Pro FX SSD takes customer, employee, and partner creations to orbit and back.

OWC is proud to have taken our first step into space as part of a payload today – the Envoy Pro FX external SSD has now successfully traveled to space and back on board a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.

The Envoy Pro FX SSD included content produced by OWC contest participants, OWC employee pictures, and contributions from OWC ambassadors and esteemed artists including BT, Blanco Brown, Brad Paisley, Common Kings, Desmond Child, DragonForce, Kurt Hugo Schneider, Maggie Rose, Postmodern Jukebox, Puddles Pity Party, Smash Mouth, Steve Vai, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tim McGraw, Walk Off the Earth, Weird Al Yankovic, Wyclef Jean, Yngwie Malmsteen, and ZEDD.

The New Shepard Mission

The Blue Origin ship blasted off at 8:36 AM (CT) this morning and safely returned to Earth at 8:46 AM.

“This public-private partnership is a great example of NASA and industry working together on common goals – to explore more of the Moon and eventually land humans on Mars.”
Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD)

According to Blue Origin, New Shepard flew 12 commercial payloads today “to space and back on this mission, including the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate under a Tipping Point partnership. This is the first payload to fly mounted on the exterior of a New Shepard booster rather than inside the capsule, opening the door to a wide range of future high-altitude sensing, sampling, and exposure payloads.”

Blue Origin & NASA Inforgraphic — Blue Origin & NASA Test Technologies for Returning to the Moon

These are small, but important steps into the final frontier. We are excited not just to be aboard, but also looking to a future where the space worthiness of our own solutions will be meaningful.

The Envoy Pro FX

The Envoy Pro FX is one giant leap for all computerkind™ as it’s the first portable SSD with out-of-this-world performance and compatibility. Plug into yesterday’s and today’s Thunderbolt and USB equipped Macs and PCs. Plug into tomorrow’s Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 machines. You can even plug it into iPad Pro, Chromebook, and Surface devices. Imagine never having to worry about what your external drive works with or what interface you have!

“We have known for many years that our customers include some of the most talented and creative people around, and we want to give them the chance to have a part in this adventure with us,” said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. “OWC is proud to provide storage and upgrades that keep our customers’ content and creations safe for years, and now even to space and back!”

The Envoy Pro FX SSD will be available later this year through MacSales.com.