2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Takeoff New Sheppard
Blue Origin, owned by Amazon, successfully tested the New Shepard rocket, launching it into the stratosphere at an altitude of 93.5 kilometers. This is reported by Jeff Bezos' blog on the company page.
During the flight, the capsule, where the spacecraft team is supposed to be located, detached normally and landed softly. New Sheppard is being developed as a reusable system, it is assumed that both the upper stage and the capsule will be used again, but it was not possible to land the upper stage as softly. According to Jeff, fortunately, the company is already developing an improved hydraulic system for the device - a problem in this part of the rocket led to the crash of the module.
At the moment, the company is already working on the "big brother" of the rocket, an orbiter equipped with a BE-4 engine running on liquefied natural gas and oxygen, with a thrust of 2500 kilonewtons, 4 times less than that of the Proton launch vehicle. The thrust of the BE-3 engine installed on the rocket tested yesterday was approximately 500 kilonewtons.
