Blue Origin’s New Shepard Space Vehicle Makes Historic Landing Back To Launch

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2000, successfully launched and landed (shown to the right, or above on mobile) its New Shepard reusable launch system on November 23, after an unsuccessful first attempt earlier this year on April 29.

On Monday, Blue Origin launched its New Shepard rocket 329,839 feet, or 100.5 kilometers, above its launch site in West Texas, reaching just above the 100-kilometer altitude that is considered the beginning of outer space. “Full reuse is a game-changer, and we can’t wait it fuel up and fly again”.

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

SpaceX’s Dragon 2 spacecraft, on the other hand, is created to ferry seven astronauts at a time to and from the International Space Station by late 2017.

Usually, the rocket would have fallen back to Earth and been unable to complete any more flights.

After releasing the crew capsule, the booster began returning to Earth, deploying drag brakes as it reentered the atmosphere to slow down its descent.

This isn’t to detract from Blue Origin’s efforts, however.

That was the general idea of how the vehicle operates.

Blue Origin hopes to offer suborbital flights aboard New Shepard, but also wants to build and launch rockets capable of reaching orbit carrying crew and cargo. The Mach number he points out is the ratio of the speed of the rocket to the speed of sound in the gas, which determines the magnitude of the compressibility effects.

Meanwhile, the booster descended under guided flight to the landing pad. The vehicle was successfully landed under parachutes at 11:32 a.m. Central Time.

During a teleconference with reporters Tuesday, Bezos was asked about SpaceX’s efforts to field a partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

Musk’s tweet, however, makes an important point: Suborbital flights are insignificant for his ultimate goal, which is to send and return astronauts to Mars. This means that Musk’s vehicle needs to take a lot more beating that Bezos’.