Blue Origin, Jeff Bezo's company has successfully launched and landed its third New Shepard rocket on Saturday. Bezo, erstwhile known as the founder of Amazon.com has named the rocket after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut who went into space.
The motto of Blue Origin is "Launch, Land, Repeat." Bezo's plan is for both the rocket and capsule to eventually carry paying customers. In this latest trial, the capsule conducted two microgravity experiments from the University of Central Florida and the Southwest Research Institute.
The SRI conducted the "Box of Rocks Experiment that used a box containing loose rocks that "mimic the surface conditions on asteroids. Another experiment was called "Collisions Into Dust Experiment" which used a box of dust and a marble to "mimic impacts between objects in microgravity."
The same rocket was launched last Nov. 23, 2015 in the company's second successful attempt. Since it is a reusable sub-orbital rocket and capsule, Blue Origin went on to launch its third experiment which also turned out to be successful as the second attempts.
The second attempt was the company's first trial that included a fully successful landing of the crew capsule as well as the booster.
New Shepard's first successful launch was in April 2015. However, there were issues with its hydraulic systems at that time and the company was not able to recover the rocket.
"Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts -- a used rocket," Bezos stated after the rocket's first successful landing. "Full reuse is a game changer, and we can't wait to fuel up and fly again," he added.
The third attempt was special since it was announced beforehand. Bezo's first two attempts were only broadcasted after it was done.
According to a tweet from Bezo, all of the happenings were captured by drone cameras and stated that the third landing was "perfect."
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