Space transportation company, Blue Origin, successfully launched and landed a suborbital rocket Tuesday in an important step toward making reusable rockets.
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It’s the second surprise test of Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule and launch vehicle this year, following a launch in April .
After climbing to 330,000 feet, the capsule then gracefully falls back to earth as its engine fires slow it down.
Blue Origin, a private space company, announced Tuesday its New Shepard reusable rocket successfully flew 100.5 kilometers into space and returned to its launch site. Founder Jeff Bezos hailed the success a real game-changer.
Private space companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX have been in the race to create recyclable rockets, not just to lessen the cost of space travels, but also to make it possible for space tourism to happen.
Other companies including SpaceX are attempting similar feats, with Elon Musk’s firm still aiming at landing its Falcon 9 rocket on a water-borne platform after sending a supply ship to the global Space Station. Blue Origin’s rocket achieved Mach 3.72.
“When you lower the cost of access to space very significantly you will change the markets, you will change what’s possible”, Mr Bezos said. This means the rocket can be re-used for subsequent flights, which companies like Blue Origin claim will make spaceflight far less expensive. According to the video, the soft landing itself took place yesterday in West Texas.
“It was a totally nominal flight”, Bezos said in an interview. SpaceX has already demonstrated it can land rockets on land as well. “Controlled landing not easy, but done right, can look easy”, Bezos tweeted out along with a video of the rockets journey.
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The rocket reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, landing upright and intact back at the remote launch site near Van Horn, Texas. However, Musk has been trying to launch an orbital spaceflight, which is where a spacecraft is dispatched onto a trajectory that would enable it to remain in space for at least one full orbit of the Earth.
