Blue Origin has successfully landed a suborbital rocket back at its launch site, a key step in its drive to make reusable rockets, the company said on Tuesday.
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Rocket reusability is a much sought technology; it is expected to make space travel much more profitable for the growing private aerospace industry.
(Photo: Twitter/Jeff Bezos) Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and man behind private space company Blue Origin, proudly tweets this historical achievement on reusable rockets. Founder Jeff Bezos hailed the success a real game-changer.
It shows New Shepard as it climbs to an altitude of 329,839 feet – or sub-orbital space – which is where the vehicle’s crew capsule detaches. Musk’s company has attempted to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a barge after launch.
Blue Origin was originally only focused on suborbital flight, but in the past two years has become more involved in contracts for the United Launch Alliance.
Those keeping track of the commercial space race will recognize this as big news.
It appears that the Blue Origin team has been secretly testing a near finalized product in recent months capable of entering into space (329,839 feet) and then gracefully hovering back within 5 feet of the original takeoff point.
Both modules of New Shepard are created to be reused. Like Branson and Musk, Bezos said he plans to take one of his own rockets into space as soon as possible.
Lucky for us his tweet included a link to the video showing New Shepard achieving this marvelous feat. But, he also has a space company – Blue Origin. When Blue Origin is ready for passengers, Bezos said he wants to travel to space and fulfill a boyhood dream. As the crew capsule descends, it reenters the atmosphere with astronauts experiencing about 5x the force of gravity before deploying three main parachutes for landing. Just prior to landing, the booster re-ignites its BE-3 engine which slows the vehicle to 4.4 miles per hour for a gentle, powered vertical landing, enabling vehicle reuse.
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“It is… important to clear up the difference between “space” and “orbit”, Musk posted on Twitter.
