Blue Origin, a space company founded by Bezos, yesterday achieved a breakthrough by launching the New Shepard rocket in West Texas, the company said.
Advertisement
After deploying a space capsule, the rocket then plummeted back toward the ground, reignited its booster, and – in a world first – gently and safely touched down in the middle of a landing target. Being able to refly a rocket will slash launch costs, a game-changer for the space industry, Bezos said.
Bezos also shared the news in the only tweet on the Twitter account he set up in 2008.
“Welcome back, New Shepard“, says a man’s voice in the video.
The rocket managed a vertical landing at a site in Texas, while the empty passenger capsule made a controlled landing with the help of a parachute.
The New Shepard rocket just prior to touchdown. This means the rocket can be re-used for subsequent flights, which companies like Blue Origin claim will make spaceflight far less expensive.
Regardless of the technicalities involved, you can’t take away from what Blue Origins has accomplished.
The test flight was unmanned, but the rocket is topped with a capsule created to carry six. Then the rocket grazed the lower reaches of space before returning to Earth and slowly touching down in a blaze of glory. This win for Bezos with his Blue Origin reusable space vehicle will now up his company one level above Elon Musk’s spaceX in this arena.
Advertisement
According to Bezo’s blog post, the booster was moving at just 4.4 miles per hour through the last 100 feet. His company recently succeeded in the very area that Elon Musk’s SpaceX has struggled so much with – safely landing a spent rocket. Now let’s check out today’s voyage of the New Shepard. SpaceX actually already did this a few years ago with its series of “grasshopper tests”, when it launched a Falcon 9 rocket a few hundred meters into the air and successfully landed it back on Earth. “It is, however, important to clear up the difference between “space” and “orbit”…”
