
New Shepard In-Flight Escape Test [video] - obi1kenobi
https://www.blueorigin.com/
======
JanSolo
Crew capsule and booster both went up, seperated, came down and landed
nominally. In fact, they made it look easy; everything worked as they
predicted and there were no suprises.

A couple of points of interest:

1\. The Crew Capsule pitched around quite a lot after it left the booster.
This would have been quite 'exciting' for any passengers but was easily
survivable. SpaceX had a similar problem in their Dragon LES test a while
back. Indeed, the BO Capsule looked much more stable under parachutes than the
Dragon did.

2\. The commentators mentioned that the booster had flown and landed 5 times
and would be retired to a museum. 5 times!? There was so little drama in the
launch and landing that I expect they could probably launch it another 5 times
with few problems. This is what a reliable system looks like. Good job!

3\. The gantry tower at the West Texas launch site had what looked like
walkways for accessing the Crew capsule. Does that mean crewed tests are
imminent? Very exciting!

This is a fantastic result for Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin team; I'm hoping
that their new orbital booster is as reliable. If it is, SpaceX and ULA will
have some real domestic competition. At last!

~~~
nixos
> This is what a reliable system looks like.

Unlike SpaceX, BO doesn't publicize things as they happen, so it could have
been the third attempt also.

Though having more money to play before launching commercial sats helps

~~~
Symmetry
They used to be like that but over the last year they've switched to
announcing all their flights in advance and live streaming them.

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diggernet
T+2:41: "Phil, also as a reminder, we also have that retro-thrust system on
the bottom of the crew capsule to make sure that the touchdown is even
smoother for our astronauts."

T+2:54: "Just as a reminder, that's also going to kick up quite a bit of dust
out here in Texas."

T+3:08: "It's going to come down at just about 3 miles an hour by the time it
touches down."

T+4:15: Capsule smacks into the desert at 16mph, with no sign of retro-thrust
or dust kick up before impact.

~~~
funkysquid
That's what I thought as well, but watching some other videos on their site,
they say the boost happens in "the last second"
[https://youtu.be/xYYTuZCjZcE?t=2m34s](https://youtu.be/xYYTuZCjZcE?t=2m34s).
Any sign of thrust before landing really isn't visible in that video either.
So unless they've never actually fired it successfully and we just don't know
what it looks like, it's possible that it's just so close to touchdown that we
can't distinguish the thrust from the landing.

I'm assuming that decelerating by 13mph over < 1s is still quite a bit better
than by 15mph instantly? But I really don't know.

~~~
diggernet
I suppose that a last-instant firing is a plausible explanation, and would
greatly reduce physical damage to the capsule. But then the talk of a "gentle"
3mph touchdown is conveniently ignoring the 16->13 deceleration a split second
before. As you say, it's likely preferable to 15->0, but I suspect not a whole
lot more pleasant to experience. The astronauts would probably not even notice
the actual touchdown an instant later.

~~~
phire
The goal is to stretch out the deceleration. Instead of going from 16 to 0
instantly (probably more like 1/10th of a second when you count the capsule
deforming), it's going from 16 to 0 over a much larger fraction of a second.

It's probably the difference between running full speed into a brick wall and
running full speed into a large foam pad.

The foam pad decelerates you in less than a second, but it's a whole lot more
comfortable than the brick wall.

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reddog
This is its 5th launch and I love the way the logos and lettering on the
outside of the rocket has not been retouched/repainted after the previous
launches. You can see it's used space ship.

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david-given
The actual launch is at 1h06 into the recorded video (there were several
holds).

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joshontheweb
Really cool to watch! I didn't know the plan ahead of time and thought the
thing blew up when the escape capsule fired. So cool to feel like a space race
is warming up.

~~~
xanadohnt
"Space race is warming up" \- You verbalized perfectly what I've been feeling
lately. So exciting!

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pinewurst
Both landings successful, though the capsule didn't seem quite as stable as
the booster at separation burn time.

~~~
Frompo
Yeah, that tumbling didn't look like it was intended.

~~~
trothamel
I'm not sure about Blue Origin, but the Apollo abort system intentionally
introduced a tumble into the capsule as part of the abort process. The reason
for this is that it was stable in two positions - nose first, and heat shield
first. Only the latter was survivable on reentry.

It was more stable in the heat shield first position, so by introducing a
tumble, they were able to avoid nose-first and ensure an abort followed by
reentry was something that could be survived.

I don't know if Blue Origin is doing the same thing - but it's not impossible
this was something they might have wanted.

~~~
RealityVoid
Though this is not a reentry. You would not get the same heating effects when
aborting a launch, during reentry you'd get all that lateral speed you need to
decelerate from. Not the case during abort.

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lmm
Glad to see a live video. Blue Origin had previously had a reputation of being
extremely secretive - hopefully SpaceX has demonstrated the advantages of
making things a bit more public, which ultimately benefits everyone.

~~~
robryan
It was probably about not getting too much attention before they knew the
thing wasn't going to blow up or crash.

Now that it is shown to be reliable they likely want as much attention as they
can get.

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agumonkey
How many times did they mention "first reusable ...", it felt like jabs at
Elon Musk.

~~~
yessql
They should be proud of that for sure, but they just go up really high, vs.
putting a payload into orbit. It's got to be an order if magnitude easier for
BO. Look at how long the booster hovers and corrects it way down so gently.
SpaceX just can't carry that much extra fuel to land like that.

~~~
MertsA
The Falcon 9 also can't throttle low enough to be able to hover when empty. It
could do it with extra fuel but that's only because the extra fuel would add
more mass, it would have to land before it became light enough that it starts
accelerating upwards again.

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hamitron
Might want to do something about that booster being on fire after landing.

~~~
ceejayoz
SpaceX's Falcon does the same thing - paint on the landing legs burns a little
after the landing. In fact, it's deliberately ablative
([https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/24rnci/are_the_land...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/24rnci/are_the_landing_legs_reusable/ch9z6vl)).

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ISL
There's been a launch delay, so there are still ~8 minutes to go before
launch!

~~~
Frompo
Too late now!

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6d6b73
Looks like SpaceX will have some catching up to do. Bezos seems to be getting
ahead of Musk.

~~~
coob
The Dragon Launch Escape System was successfully tested in May last year.

It is Blue Origin who are catching up.

~~~
mariusz79
But not on a rocket that flew five times.

~~~
sfeng
This is a much simpler rocket than the Falcon 9. For one, it's suborbital. Its
flights are so much simpler than the full orbital injections and hypersonic
reentries the Falcon flies.

A quick list of things Blue Origin hasn't done yet:

\- Sent anything to orbit (much less paying cargo)

\- Sent anything to geosyncronous orbit

\- Landed a ship coming back from orbit

\- Docked with the ISS

