Blue Origin successfully lands ‘reusable’ space rocket

By Park Sae-jin Posted : January 26, 2016, 10:31 Updated : January 26, 2016, 10:31

 


[Courtesy of Blue Origin]

 

Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launched and landed “New Shephard” rocket on Friday. The New Shephard rocket is the same rocket which was launched and brought back to Earth in November.

Blue Origin’s New Shephard rocket and Space X’s “Falcon 9” rocket are the reusable rocket which are the representatives in the reusable rocket industry. Space X successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket after deploying its load into low orbit recently. But less than a week after the company failed to land its rocket on an autonomous barge, ending up in a fiery explosion.

Two pioneers in reusable rockets may seem similar in a way, but the two companies are quite different in their methods of testing the rockets. Blue Origin’s New Shephard rocket launches up to 100 kilometers, reaching an area where Earth’s atmosphere divides from space. Space X’s Falcon 9 launches up to low Earth orbit.

Blue Origin and Space X’s final goals are making space travel affordable. For normal space rockets, stages of depletion are inevitable. Parts of rockets are detached and dumped. Millions of dollars are crashed into the earth or the ocean.

But reusable rockets? Because they are reusable, they can be used again and again with maintenance reducing the cost required to manufacture a rocket every time. The idea suits Blue Origin’s long term plan “Our vision- millions of people living and working in space. You can’t get there by throwing the hardware away.”

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