The Wall Street Journal
By ANDY PASZTOR
Updated Nov. 24, 2015 5:53 p.m. ET
The space company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos announced a historic coup with the test flight of a fully reusable rocket, which could usher in a new era for space transportation.
Privately funded Blue Origin LLC said it successfully landed a spent rocket back on Earth after an unmanned flight to the edge of space.
The company’s reusable New Shepard vehicle flew a suborbital test to 333,000 feet on Monday reaching nearly four times the speed of sound, and then both the capsule and its BE-3 liquid-fueled rocket separately landed safely in West Texas—ready for another flight.
Buoyed by the mission, Mr. Bezos for the first time sketched out an ambitious timetable that envisions starting commercial suborbital flights carrying paying passengers potentially in less than two years. “We’ll fly humans when we’re ready,” he said in a brief interview Tuesday. But if all goes well, he added, “I’m thinking it could be sometime in 2017.”
The company and Mr. Bezos, both known for secrecy, in the past have steadfastly refused to offer even a rough schedule for such service. But since the test flight went smoothly and “validated the architecture” of the fully automated New Shepard system, Mr. Bezos said he now feels comfortable projecting the beginning of routine operations.
In the meantime, Blue Origin plans to conduct roughly two dozen additional test missions, including validation flights demonstrating that the capsule containing passengers can safely separate from the first stage in case of a rocket malfunction during ascent. The vehicle is designed to operate autonomously, without any pilots on board.
A rocket launched by Blue Origin, the privately funded space company backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully landed back on Earth on Nov. 23, after an unmanned test flight to the edge of space.
“You should have seen all the tears of joy” after the booster touched down Monday before noon Texas time, Mr. Bezos said. “It was one of the greatest moments of my life.”
According to a company statement issued some 18 hours after the test flight, the first-stage booster made a flawless return through stiff winds and settled back gently at the company’s launch facility in West Texas. The single rocket engine reignited at an altitude of about 5,000 feet during the controlled return, the company said, and it landed upright, 4 feet from where it started, traveling at a speed of 4.4 miles an hour.
The ability to reuse such a large rocket has been a long-standing goal of the global aerospace industry, and until now the efforts of Elon Musk’s closely held Space Exploration Technology Corp., also known as SpaceX, have garnered the most attention. In addition to lowering costs, the aim is to significantly accelerate the tempo of launches.
SpaceX has repeatedly tried but failed to land its Falcon 9 booster on a floating platform after operational launches. Weather issues and mechanical problems disrupted those returns and ended with the spent rocket failing to land vertically. The company, which has worked over the years to improve its guidance, propulsion and other systems, is expected to try again in coming months.
With its first-of-a-kind accomplishment, Blue Origin set a new benchmark for the burgeoning commercial space industry. The New Shepard system is intended to carry six passengers on suborbital flights to the edge of the atmosphere, giving space tourists a taste of weightlessness with the capsule floating to Earth after deployment of three main parachutes.
The rocket is designed to separate at the high point of its trajectory, as it sends the capsule and its passengers coasting on a thrill ride. The BE-3 engine, used to slow the rocket during the final descent phase, is intended to be reused.
“Full reuse is a game changer, and we can’t wait to fuel up and fly again,” Mr. Bezos said in the statement.
In typical rocket launches, parts of the booster either burn up during re-entry or return too damaged to be flown again. Many industry officials and space aficionados consider reusability essential for space-tourism projects to thrive.
The ability to inspect, refurbish and then launch the same booster—instead of allowing it to plummet back to Earth in an uncontrolled fashion—also offers huge potential advantages for satellite operators and launch providers alike.
Blue Origin failed in an attempt to land its booster earlier this year, after a hydraulic system malfunction. As a result, Mr. Bezos said the system was redesigned and a second, backup system had been installed to ensure a proper landing.
Blue Origin could be the first company to get tourists into space, considering that closely held rivals Xcor Aerospace Inc. and Virgin Galactic LLC, which is backed by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, haven’t said when they will be ready.
As part of his expanding space ambitions, Mr. Bezos in September announced a roughly $200 million investment to build rockets and capsules in Florida, and then blast them into orbit from a nearby Cape Canaveral launchpad that hasn’t been used for a decade.
Those missions will use different capsules and a larger version of the same rocket engine that powers suborbital New Shepard, which is intended to continue launching from the Van Horn, Texas, facility.
The space startup’s orbital missions will use historic Launch Complex 36, located on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which among other firsts launched the initial American spacecraft to visit other planets.
Blue Origin also is joining with a Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture to provide a new, all-domestic rocket engine to launch national-security and other U.S. government payloads.
Original article can be found here: http://www.wsj.com
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, left, unveils a Blue Origin rocket in September.
My favorite two words in the story are: Privately funded.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the Blue Origin Team.