Blue Origin test flight

[MartG]

Blue Origin have released video of their first test flight yesterday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEdk-XNoZpA

Company website with more details https://www.blueorigin.com/

The vehicle has a slightly unfortunate appearance - reminds me of this...

[Eric Mc]

Blue Origin seems to be conducting itself in a far less "public" way than Space X.

Despite its odd look, the overall impression seems to be of competence.

[MartG]

From the info on the website it looks like a ballistic equivalent of Virgin Galactic's offering for space tourism.

I've yet to see any info whether they recovered the booster yesterday ( it's supposed to be reusable ) - I suspect if they had it would have been shown in the video

[simoid]

Do the occupants need to wear a helmet if the craft has one?

[Eric Mc]

MartG said:

From the info on the website it looks like a ballistic equivalent of Virgin Galactic's offering for space tourism.

I've yet to see any info whether they recovered the booster yesterday ( it's supposed to be reusable ) - I suspect if they had it would have been shown in the video

I expect it wasn't recovered. What type of rocket motor does it use? It looks quite "clean".

[rhinochopig]

All I can say is that it's a bloody good job that it doesn't feature this kind of propellent tank design...

[scubadude]

Its an interesting shape, looks like the "ring" than supports the capsule has something to do with the proposed vertical landing system (judging by their website) abit like SpaceX's system.

I found their video of a pad abort test- I wouldn't want to ride that one, its Very quick off the mark- lots of nice spinal compression :-)

[MartG]

“Unfortunately we didn’t get to recover the propulsion module because we lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent,” said Bezos in an email release this morning.

[Eric Mc]

Strangely familiar reason.

[The Wookie]

[budfox]

Is it deliberately designed to look like a love length?

[MartG]

Eric Mc said:

I expect it wasn't recovered. What type of rocket motor does it use? It looks quite "clean".

Their own Be3 engine - LOX/LH2

[Eric Mc]

That explains the clean exhaust. It actually looks very promising.

[MartG]

Yes - they have a more powerful Be4 engine in the pipeline for orbital launches

[Eric Mc]

They are obviously working on a similar booster recovery system to Space X. Their recent failure to safely land the booster just shows how hard this technique is to get right.

[CrutyRammers]

Good stuff. Competition between nations got us up there, now it's looking like competing .com billionaires will take the next steps, in manned terms anyway.

[Eric Mc]

It's all getting quite exciting.