There was no noise, but Jeff Bezos’ rocket company just set a new record

Blue Origin, the space travel company of billionaire Jeff Bezos, just made their first mission in 2020, successfully launching a New Shepard suborbital missile at East Texas launch pad. Most notably, this is the 7th successful launch (including yesterday) of this particular missile and also the 13th missile launch of the New Shepard missile.

With 7 successful launches, this New Shepard missile from Blue Origin is also on par with the record of Falcon 9 missile from rival SpaceX. In mid-August, the Falcon 9 rocket just set a record when it was reused 6 times. Although the New Shepard missile has a much lower range than the Falcon 9, this is still an admirable milestone for Blue Origin.

The scene of New Shepard rocket flying up from the launch field

Yesterday’s launch was to test NASA’s active landing sensor system, which will be used on to create a more flexible, accurate and self-propelled landing system for landing vehicles. wing down to the Moon in the future.

NASA’s testing of the landing system also marks the first time that Blue Origin has conducted a payload flight outside of the New Shepard missile.

Outside the New Shepard missile mounted NASA SPLICE test equipment with two white sensor clusters mounted below the fins of the stabilizer.

To date, all payload launches of New Shepard have been in capsules located at the top of the rocket. However, load testing on the outside of the missile is essential to make the measurements for the spacecraft’s ability to land accurately in the future.

Even though NASA has landed on the moon before, they still want to upgrade this technology to be able to perform difficult missions fully automatically with greater accuracy. They also want to create future spacecraft capable of reliably doing so many times because NASA’s goal with the moon is to establish a human presence on Earth’s largest natural satellite. land.

Scene of the New Shepard rocket landed safely on the ground

A number of other tests were also carried out in the hold of the New Shepard missile. This launch is also to test a new heat shield for use in future New Glenn missiles – Blue Origin’s next-generation spacecraft with the ability to launch into Earth’s orbit of the same payload, added new capabilities for the company besides the New Shepard rocket.

Refer to TechCrunch