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posted by janrinok on Monday April 30 2018, @05:53PM   Printer-friendly

Suborbital test flight moves Blue Origin closer to launching people

The privately-developed New Shepard booster, designed and built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin, took off from a launch pad in West Texas, briefly flew into space with an instrumented capsule, and returned to a rocket-assisted landing Sunday in another test before humans climb aboard the suborbital spaceship.

[...] A live webcast of the test flight provided by Blue Origin showed the vehicles coasting to an apogee of roughly 351,000 feet, or about 107 kilometers, around four minutes into the mission. The rocket achieved a top speed of around 2,200 mph (3,540 kilometers per hour), according to data released by Blue Origin. Ariane Cornell, who hosted Blue Origin's launch webcast, said engineers intended to "push the envelope" of the New Shepard's capabilities, aiming to reach an altitude of 350,000 feet, around 20,000 feet higher than the rocket's typical target. "That's the altitude we've been targeting for operations," Bezos tweeted after Sunday's flight.

The two vehicles then made their descents, and the New Shepard booster fell back through the atmosphere, deployed an airbrake and reignited its throttleable BE-3 engine to slow its velocity for touchdown. Four landing legs extended from the base of the New Shepard booster just before it settled gently on a landing pad around 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the rocket's launch site.

The rocket landed about seven minutes after liftoff, while the crew capsule deployed three parachutes and fired retro-rockets to cushion the craft's landing on the desert floor approximately 10 minutes after launch. A live view from a flying drone captured spectacular views of the capsule's final descent.

Also at TechCrunch.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:43AM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:43AM (#674014) Journal

    OK. Like I said in another post. Wake me when they can put something into orbit.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:49AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:49AM (#674017) Journal

    The BE-4 is one of the most powerful rocket engines ever built. They could stop pursuing rockets and just build engines, and they would still be a serious company.

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    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:46PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:46PM (#674174) Journal

      I think the millionaire thrill ride formed my perceptions early on. Especially in light of SpaceX successes during the same time. My perception was also colored by the bragging about "firsts" while SpaceX actually did some of those "firsts" without realizing they needed to make a big deal of it.

      But I am willing to take them seriously based on what you describe.

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      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.