Jane Edwards
Blue Origin-built New Shepard rocket has completed a take-off and vertical landing operation two months after the company put the rocket through a second unmanned test flight in November 2015.
Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos wrote in a blog entry posted Friday that New Shepard took off from a launch site in West Texas and slowly descended to Earth for reuse after it achieved an apogee of 101.7 kilometers.
The company introduced some changes to the rocket system in preparation for the third launch, such as replacement of pyro igniters and crew capsule parachutes and software updates, said Bezos, who is also founder of Amazon.com.
The company will also subject its BE-4 engine to full-engine tests this year, Bezos added.
Blue Origin collaborates with United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to develop the engine for integration with ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
