Blue Origin becomes first to achieve second landing with same rocket

SpaceX’s December launch-and-recovery is similar to Blue Origin’s first landing, but analysts contend SpaceX’s was more impressive because the Falcon 9 rocket reached a higher altitude and executed a mission – boosting 11 Orbcomm communications satellites into orbit – while Blue Origin’s first event was a test. It performed a controlled landing of a spent rocket back on Earth. The craft successfully has made the same trip in November.

In a recent blog post, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reveals that the crew capsule parachutes and pyro igniters were replaced, and new software installed, but otherwise this was the same rocket as before.

“It’s like a pilot lining up a plane with the centerline of the runway”, Bezos explained. You just land a few feet left or right of the centerline.

New Shepard’s rockets are only powerful enough to do suborbital runs. Indeed, Blue Origin’s stated vision is to one day have “millions of people living and working in space”, an ambition that it says can’t be achieved if you keep “throwing the hardware away”.

Blue Origin isn’t the only aerospace company developing reusable tech. “Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family, it’s still many times larger than New Shepard”, he wrote.

Once again, there’s a caveat here that rival SpaceX in particular will be keen to stress.

The race to successfully return rockets to Earth following launch is well and truly taking place.

Musk’s upgraded Falcon 9 launch system was certified for national security space launches January 25, according to a statement from Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center.

Musk tweeted, “Well, at least the pieces were bigger this time”.

Blue Origin-built New Shepard rocket has completed a take-off and vertical landing operation two months after the company put the rocket through a second unmanned test flight in November 2015.