Blue Origin releases video from third launch and landing of New Shepard

TechCrunch ^ | 4/2/2016 | Emily Calandrelli

[Vince Ferrer]

Remember when Blue Origin made history by vertically landing a rocket after launching it into space? Remember when they reused that same rocket and then landed it again? Well, today Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, once again, launched that very same New Shepard rocket and successfully landed it for a third time.

At 11:28 AM EST, Bezos announced the successful landing of the New Shepard suborbital rocket as well as the crew capsule that it was carrying into space. While the rocket will eventually be used for crewed missions, there were no humans on this flight.

Unlike previous launches where the public was mostly unaware of the event until after the fact, Bezos gave the world a heads up the night before the launch.

With a few tweets, Bezos revealed that a couple of things were different about this particular New Shepard launch.

For one, upon the return of their rocket, New Shepard’s BE-3 liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen engine would be restarted closer to the landing pad at 3,600 feet from the ground. If there were any issues in restarting the engine, the rocket would impact the ground within 6 seconds.

Blue Origin also tested a new, more efficient radar cross section (RCS) algorithm on the crew capsule.

Another unique aspect of today’s launch was that this mission had a payload on board. New Shepard carried two microgravity science experiments into space: one from the Southwest Research Institute and another from the University of Central Florida.

The University of Central Florida is testing how a layer of dust reacts when a marble impacts it under microgravity conditions. The Southwest Research Institute is flying a “Box of Rocks Experiment” to explore the jostling and settling of rocky soil in microgravity.

When Blue Origin first successfully landed their suborbital rocket in November, some were quick to compare Blue Origin’s success to SpaceX’s rocket landing failures at the time (although they successfully landed their Falcon 9 rocket later in December).

However, the key difference between the two company’s current rocket reusability pursuits is Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is suborbital (reaches the line of space and comes back down to the Earth) while SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is orbital (powerful enough to send payloads into a full orbit around the Earth).

Because of this difference, experts believe SpaceX’s orbital rocket is much more technically difficult to land successfully.

Landing a rocket is only the first important step toward rocket reusability. In order to save money for customers who buy rides into space, a launch provider must be able to safely and reliably relaunch recovered rockets. With today’s launch, Blue Origin has now successfully reused a rocket twice.

[bajabaja]

He built his companies on 5 billion in subsidies. That they now do contract work is a result of subsidies in the first place.

You paid for it. And you can argue with National Review.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419720/dont-believe-elon-musk-renewables-get-much-more-federal-subsidies-fossil-fuels-sean

[Moonman62]

He built his companies on 5 billion in subsidies.

...

He put his own money that he made from Paypal into SpaceX, which is the company we’re discussing on this thread.

[bajabaja]

His own money.

If you had $5 billion from subsidies you would have lots of your own money, too.

That is the point.

Bezos did it without government (taxpayer) subsidies. He started Amazon (a private company with no taxpayer subsidies) and now funds his own space company.

Musk got rich on taxpayer subsidies, then used his “own” money from that and funded Spacex.

There’s a big difference. But don’t look behind the curtain!

[SunTzuWu]

The subject here was SpaceX. Nice how you’ve managed to add Tesla and Solar City to the conversation. Then if that wasn’t enough, you included the life time totals for the other two.

“Argue with NR”? No you’re the one using their tortured data to support your argument.

“I paid for it”. I’m seeing an impressive return for SpaceX.

Bezos is playing with toys while SpaceX is sending paying cargo to orbit. If you want to talk about other peoples money, Bezos is spending Amazon money while shareholders still aren’t seeing the returns they should. Instead of recording profits for Amazon and paying shareholders, Bezos is spending the money on his hobby.

[Moonman62]

Musk got rich on taxpayer subsidies, then used his “own” money from that and funded Spacex.

...

Really?

Provide a timeline.

[SunkenCiv]

Well, that should piss off Elon Musk, eh? ;’)

[bajabaja]

You might read the National Review article which details what you ask for, or the Los Angeles Times article linked there.

Or google.

It’s not fun when your guy gets slammed, I know. But the facts are what they are.

[bajabaja]

So 5 billion dollars in US taxpayer funds is not a subsidy?

OK.

[bajabaja]

Money is fungible. What you get somewhere (his own sources or taxpayer funded) is used elsewhere, including Spacex.

Can you dispute the five billion in subsidies? Can you say he received no subsidies at all?

No, no one can.

He is on the taxpayer teat for a good portion of his wealth. If he was so successful at paypal why did he need the $5 billion?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Vince Ferrer, Moonman62, and SunTzuWu.

Both companies (Blue Origin and SpaceX) are working on methane-burning engines; the cryo H O engine used on this suborbital craft won't get to orbit even scaled up. That problem was addressed during the Apollo years by using cryo upper stages but the big booster that got those systems into space used RP-1 (a purified kerosene) oxidized with liquid oxygen -- the same combo he'd used in the V2.

The Soviets had copied the V2 engine (there's a nice surviving photo of Sergei Korolev in uniform, standing next to a captured V2 engine in 1945) and scaled it up, and refined it over the past 70 years, such that the *completely unsubsidized* defense contractors use Russian multi-generation derivations of the V2 engine to launch payloads of various kinds, both military and commercial.

Musk wants a methane-burner because of the extra pop, but also because methane is said to be available on the surface of Mars, whereas the Martians are fresh out of RP-1. Bezos wants a methane-burner in order to ferry a bunch of *completely unsubsidized* but no doubt appropriately remunerated rich celebrities into Earth orbit, and eventually to lunar orbit, and safely back to Earth.

I very much doubt space travel will ever be quite as safe as airline travel, btw.

Enough already -- let's get back to fighting about Trump or Cruz. ;')

[Vince Ferrer]

Blue Origin’s upcoming methane engine was delected by NASA to replace the Russian engines we gave been buying.

[SunkenCiv]

• Next launch (and ASDS landing) is the CRS-8 ISS resupply mission, targeting April 8
• Blue Origin New Shepard vs SpaceX Falcon 9 trajectory and engine burns : spacex
  
  

[Moonman62]

Can you say he received no subsidies at all?

No, no one can.

...

I can say he started SpaceX without subsidies. It was mostly done with his proceeds from the sale of PayPal.

[SunkenCiv]

I hope they pull it off . I don't care about spaceflight money staying in the US, but paying our enemy is just plain stupid -- and obviously a Demagogic Party agenda item, just as turning Space Station Freedom into the ISS was.

[Moonman62]

But the facts are what they are.

...

They sure are and you don’t have them.

[Vince Ferrer]

Originally the reason to buy Russian rockets was because after the collapse of the Soviet Union they didn’t want Russian engineers to go to North Korea or Iran.

[SunkenCiv]

• [comment by Dick Eagleson, March 14, 2016 8:26 pm] I believe SpaceX recently decided to completely remove the Shuttle-era Rotating Support Structure (RSS) from LC-39A instead of just immobilizing it for now and removing it later. I'm guessing that, due to the six-month break in operations following CRS-7's failure, there are now too many items on the SpaceX launch manifest to take LC-39A out of service, once it goes live, to conveniently allow removal of RSS to be kicked down the road. I think that a year ago SpaceX's plan was for only one or possibly two missions to launch from LC-39A this year – the Falcon Heavy maiden flight and, maybe, the first unmanned orbital test of Crew Dragon. Those two items are still on their manifest and now there are a pair of SES comsat deployments slated to be the first two missions out of LC-39A as well. To do 18 total missions this year, it would benefit SpaceX to move missions from SLC-40 to LC-39A to remove some pressure from the crew at the former site. Understand that this is all speculation on my part based on previous announcements from SpaceX in addition to Ms. Shotwell's recent public remarks. That said, the various pieces all seem to fit. -- First flight of SpaceX Falcon Heavy moves to NET November 2016
  
  
• SpaceX says reusable stage could cut prices 30 percent, plans November Falcon Heavy debut

[SunkenCiv]

The original reason was there were dozens of unused heavy lift engines setting in a warehouse and available as-is, nice and cheap.

[SunkenCiv]

[singing] She wore Blue Origin (ooh wah ooh) Bluer than Origin were her eyes...

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