The space start-up Blue Origin which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has created a history when its rocket pulled off the launch and land feat successfully for the third time in a row. The rocket named as New Shepard was launched from a remote site in West Texas in order to send it to Space and then bring it back to the Earth. The Blue Origin Company has been successful in landing the prototype reusable rocket vertically on the Earth for three times in around four months now.
“The rocket reached an altitude of 339,138 feet during the flight before it returned to Earth and landed gently on the ground,” said the company representative, as reported by Space. “The unmanned crew capsule it was carrying separated from the rocket and also landed smoothly on Earth, parachuting to the ground at 1.3 miles per hour.”
The reports confirm that the reusable rocket had a perfect booster landing. “Flawless BE-3 restart and perfect booster landing,” tweeted Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, as reported by The Space Reporter. The unmanned crew capsule attached to the rocket got separated in space and returned back to Earth via a parachute while the rocket came down with a perfect vertical inclination.
Besides, it is reported that Blue Origin has captured the journey of the New Shepard rocket with the help of onboard horizon camera.
The space startup company has plans to send people on suborbital and orbital space trips. There are reports that such successful launch and landing experiments have brought the company one step closer to its desired goals.
“The New Shepard rocket and capsule can carry up to six people into space, but not high enough to reach orbit,” reported CS Monitor. “The suborbital capsule is capable of flying higher than the 62-mile i.e. around 100 kilometers boundary between Earth and space, then descends and lands via parachute. After separating from the capsule, the booster uses its thrusters to descend vertically onto a landing pad, where it sets down gently enough to be reused in later launches.”
However, the company has not yet revealed any details about the cost of such space tourism flights.
Earlier, in December 2015, Jeff Bezos expressed his thoughts on the reuse of the expendable rocket. “When you throw a rocket away, an expendable rocket, you use it once and you throw away all that expensive space hardware,” Jeff told Slate. “It’d be like getting in your Boeing 747 and flying across the country and then throwing it away, just using it one time. Imagine how expensive traveling would be.”
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket made its first successful vertical landing on Nov. 23, 2015. The second successful launch and land attempt of the rocket was carried out on Jan. 22, 2016.