Jeff Bezos’ space company does world first in landing reusable rocket

“Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts-a used rocket,”Bezos said”.

Blue Origin is well-known for being cagey about the operations at its development facility north of Van Horn in rural West Texas.

Secretive spaceflight company Blue Origin flew its New Shephard launch vehicle to the edge of space, deployed a suborbital spacecraft and returned the spent booster rocket to Earth for an upright landing, the company announced today.

During a test flight in West Texas on Monday, Blue Origin successfully launched the unmanned rocket to 329,839 feet, or just over 62 miles, what’s considered the threshold for space in what the founder of Amazon.com called a “flawless” mission. “Full reuse is a game changer, and we can’t wait to fuel up and fly again”, said Bezos in a press release on Tuesday.

The landing was cheered as a momentous milestone in the history of space flight that could one day make human travel far more accessible and affordable.

Crewed flights aren’t quite ready yet, but are the planned next step for Blue Origin after some research payloads planned for safe rocketing into space and return next year.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has also tried to land and reuse its Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket itself then fell back toward Earth, relit its boosters, and landed just next to the launch pad.

“It’s a huge moment for the company – it’s the first time they’ve actually reached space, and it’s the first time they’ve managed to safely return the craft’s six-person crew capsule and its rocket system back to Earth”.

SpaceX, the rival private space company run by Elon Musk, has been trying to do the same thing but from a much higher altitude.

Reusability has been SpaceX’s goal from the get-go, and while it’s come close to succeeding several times, its strategy of attempting to land on a floating barge in the middle of the ocean has made the task hard.

Musk took to twitter to congratulate Bezos and to clarify the difference between what the two companies are hoping to achieve.