VAN HORN, Texas — Blue Origin, a private commercial space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, successfully launched the first test flight of its New Shepard pace vehicle from west Texas on Wednesday, April 29, 2015.
“Today we flew the first developmental test flight of our New Shepard space vehicle. Our 110,000-lbf thrust liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen BE-3 engine worked flawlessly, powering New Shepard through Mach 3 to its planned test altitude of 307,000 feet,” Bezos said. “Guidance, navigation and control was nominal throughout max Q and all of ascent. The in-space separation of the crew capsule from the propulsion module was perfect. Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return.”
“In fact, if New Shepard had been a traditional expendable vehicle, this would have been a flawless first test flight. Of course one of our goals is reusability, and unfortunately we didn’t get to recover the propulsion module because we lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent. Fortunately, we’ve already been in work for some time on an improved hydraulic system. Also, assembly of propulsion module serial numbers 2 and 3 is already underway – we’ll be ready to fly again soon.”
Blue Origin was selected by United Launch Alliance to serve as the primary propulsion provider for its Next Generation Launch System capable of carrying humans to low-Earth orbit. Blue Origin has recently been considering sites in Brevard County and Volusia County near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a metal manufacturing facility. Image and Video Credit: Blue Origin
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