Blue Origin - launch, seperation and vertical landing

[Russ35]

Yesterday Blue Origin managed to launch their vehicle to 100km, and separated the New Shepard capsule from the booster.

Capsule then returned to earth via parachutes, and the booster made a controlled vertical landing back at the launch site.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pillaOxGCo

Edited by Russ35 on Tuesday 24th November 18:38

[MartG]

A great achievement, and could give Virgin Galactic a big headache

Unfortunate that the media are comparing it to SpaceX though - journalists are seemingly incapable of understanding the difference between 'reaching space' on a 62 mile high lob, and achieving a landing by a booster which has launched something into orbit

After all, SpaceX did something very similar several years ago with their Grasshopper test vehicle

http://uk.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tweets-abo...

[grumbledoak]

It's a huge step. More power to them.

But, yes, it's not the world first that the media are portraying it as.

[V8LM]

Very impressive, but .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiWQZhUmmRw

[Eric Mc]

Another achievement - but only a little bit more impressive than what Grasshopper has already achieved. It's all very interesting stuff.

[scubadude]

Impressive stuff but its still playing in the backyard compared to SpaceX's (so far semi-successful) landings, I read Elon's tweets with a smile.

I wonder if anyone in NASA's press department has the balls to tweet- "Well done, we did that on the Moon before you where out of school, just saying..."

[Eric Mc]

Not to mention Mars, Venus and Titan.

Although landing relatively small objects on bodies with appreciably lower gravity fields does make a big difference.

Also, landing a tall cylinder on legs is quite different to landing a squat object.

NASA did look at landing a large rocket on the moon during their original "direct ascent" approach to putting men on the moon. The notion was abandoned for two reasons. It would have needed a booster much bigger than a Saturn V to get everything off the earth and the idea of landing a tall, weighty object on the moon was considered virtually impossible.

[tuffer]

All very good but.......You go first. That capsule certainly landed with a bump.

[Eric Mc]

I was amazed at the fairly high the rate of descent - which was only halted literally a few seconds before impact.

[SpunkyGlory]

How much damage does a launch like that do to the launch pad? I can't imagine it could be used again without some repair?

[Eric Mc]

There will always be some damage. If desperate, a pad can be ready within about 48 hours.

[MartG]

Eric Mc said:

I was amazed at the fairly high the rate of descent - which was only halted literally a few seconds before impact.

A slow descent would use more fuel

[Einion Yrth]

MartG said:

A great achievement, and could give Virgin Galactic a big headache

Unfortunate that the media are comparing it to SpaceX though - journalists are seemingly incapable of understanding the difference between 'reaching space' on a 62 mile high lob, and achieving a landing by a booster which has launched something into orbit

After all, SpaceX did something very similar several years ago with their Grasshopper test vehicle

http://uk.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tweets-abo...

The author of that business insider article is, unfortunately, scientifically illiterate.

Elon's amusing though.

[Toaster]

tuffer said:

All very good but.......You go first. That capsule certainly landed with a bump.

It did indeed,

Its all an Ego trip and who can claim to get the first commercial passengers into very near space and call them 'astronauts' don't get me going on this one !

[Toaster]

Eric Mc said:

There will always be some damage. If desperate, a pad can be ready within about 48 hours.

To be commercially viable they need multiple launches a day having multiple launchpads would probably not be commercially viable.

[Toaster]

V8LM said:

Very impressive, but .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiWQZhUmmRw

thats about the strength of it

[Eric Mc]

Toaster said:

Eric Mc said:

There will always be some damage. If desperate, a pad can be ready within about 48 hours.

To be commercially viable they need multiple launches a day having multiple launchpads would probably not be commercially viable.

I wasn't talking about Blue Origin specifically or their economics. I assumed the question was a general one about how long it took to get a pad back into action again. I know back in the mid 1960s, NASA was able to get their Titan Pad back up and working within a couple of days after Gemini 6 failed to launch - even though the rocket engines had been running a for a few seconds and various pyrotechnic devices etc had fired.

Normally there is a gap of a few months between successive firings from a launch pad.

I wasn't for one moment assuming that Blue Origin would be making daily launches from one pad.

[scubadude]

Toaster said:

To be commercially viable they need multiple launches a day having multiple launchpads would probably not be commercially viable.

I wonder if, given the legs, you need a "proper" pad with tower etc? Just a take off fire trench which is concrete and pipes, you could have multiple ones easily and they'd be less likely to get damaged. Also the trust level is significantly lower than an orbital rocket so the pad is proportionally stronger if made of the same materials.

The landing didn't seem to need much more than a flat bit of concrete- I wonder how this was allowed but Space X have been forced to use a barge, I know the rocket is larger but the states is a big empty place :-)

[Einion Yrth]

scubadude said:

I wonder if, given the legs, you need a "proper" pad with tower etc? Just a take off fire trench which is concrete and pipes, you could have multiple ones easily and they'd be less likely to get damaged. Also the trust level is significantly lower than an orbital rocket so the pad is proportionally stronger if made of the same materials.

The landing didn't seem to need much more than a flat bit of concrete- I wonder how this was allowed but Space X have been forced to use a barge, I know the rocket is larger but the states is a big empty place :-)

Blue Origin goes pretty much straight up and down, relatively slowly. Falcon adds a lot of speed and quite a lot of "sideways" specifically eastwards.

[Toaster]

scubadude said:

I wonder if, given the legs, you need a "proper" pad with tower etc? Just a take off fire trench which is concrete and pipes, you could have multiple ones easily and they'd be less likely to get damaged. Also the trust level is significantly lower than an orbital rocket so the pad is proportionally stronger if made of the same materials.

The landing didn't seem to need much more than a flat bit of concrete- I wonder how this was allowed but Space X have been forced to use a barge, I know the rocket is larger but the states is a big empty place :-)

Possibly, but I do think that whilst it could be argued that these are more sophisticated rockets then those in current use I think the likes of this project, Space X Virgin etc is more about showcasing technology of the companies rather than a real step forward in space flight. Given the troubles in the world its all a distraction as well.