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Amazing video footage of the third rocket landing in history

On Jan. 22 Blue Origin — the spaceflight company owned and founded by billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos — landed its reusable rocket, named New Shepard, for the second time. And here's the footage the company released to prove it:

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There's only one way to land a rocket: upright. So, as expected, this second landing looks a lot like the first one Blue Origin achieved last November.

blueorigin
Blue Origin

But there are a couple differences this time around, Bezos explained in a news release on Blue Origin's site:

  • New Shepard reached an altitude of 63.2 miles compared to the 62.4 miles it reached on Nov. 24, 2015.
  • Software improvements now enable the rocket to target its landing point from farther away, similar to how pilots line up with the runway before landing. "This new strategy increases margins, improving the vehicle’s ability to reject disturbances created by low-altitude winds," Bezos wrote.

This is the second vertical-landing-vertical-takeoff rocket in history that has launched to space and returned for a successful landing.

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Blue Origin's rival spaceflight company, SpaceX, is also making history with its reusable rockets. So far, SpaceX has achieved one rocket landing, last December — making Blue Origin's landing on Jan. 22 the third ever rocket landing in history.

To be fair, SpaceX rocket landings are more complicated to perform because the reusable first stage is traveling at faster speeds when it reaches space, therefore, requiring a number of complex maneuvers — including a somersault in space and multiple engine burns upon descent — to return to Earth.

New Shepard, on the other hand, launches to space and then falls back to Earth, firing its rockets seconds before touch down for a soft, safe landing. No somersaults needed, as shown in the diagram below:

blue origin
Courtesy of Blue Origin

Right now, Blue Origin's impressive rocket landings are test runs as opposed to SpaceX, who attempts its landings after shuttling cargo to space, which it has been paid to do by the company who owns the cargo.

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Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have achieved what was thought impossible ten years ago: sending a rocket to space and then bringing it back. This type of rocket reusability is expected to drastically cut the cost of spaceflight, enabling more people to take a trip to space than at any other point in history.

Not only that, reusable rocket technology is critical for realizing Bezos dream of "millions of people living and working in space" and Musk's dream of building a permanent civilization on Mars.

Looking forward, Bezos discussed Blue Origin's progress on building an orbital rocket — a rocket that launches faster and achieves higher altitudes than New Shepard so it can achieve orbit around Earth. SpaceX's Falcon 9 reusable rockets are orbital.

Another development we can expect to see from Blue Origin in the near future is the full-engine testing of its monster BE-4 rocket engines, which the United Launch Alliance hopes will fly its most powerful rocket yet.

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Watch the full footage of the launch and landing test on YouTube or below:

 

Blue Origin SpaceX Jeff Bezos
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