Blue Origin, the private space firm owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has just dropped a huge, unexpected gauntlet in the race to develop a reusable rocket. It just launched its New Shepard space vehicle (video, below) consisting of a BE-3 rocket and crew capsule to a suborbital height of around 100.5 kilometers (62 miles). The capsule then separated and touched down beneath a parachute, but more importantly, the BE-3 rocket also started its own descent. After the rockets fired at nearly 5,000 feet, it made a a controlled vertical landing at a gentle 4.4 mph.
You can read the rest and watch a video of the launch and landing @
http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/24/blue-origin-reusable-rocket-landing/
A member of my team worked on one of the air pollution permits for the launch site. The result is pretty impressive.
Congrats, Blue Origin !!!
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