Amazon’s Bezos claims another success for Blue Origin space vehicle

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin BE-3 made another safe launch and landing demonstrating the Amazon CEO’s re-usable technology for a third time.

Blue Origin didn’t settle for just repeating what worked last time. The BO time (I bet they don’t like that moniker at all..) restarted the BE-3’s engines at 3,600 feet  – much closer to the ground – than previous attempts. This proves that the system performs under more difficult parameters.

The CC in the tweet is the Crew Capsule which is jettisoned from the booster prior to landing. The capsule floats to earth using parachutes.

This launch achieved a sub-orbital altitude and returned to earth with two microgravity experiments.

The SRI contributed its “Box of Rocks Experiment” (BORE) — a box of loose rocks that “mimic the surface conditions on asteroids.” The second experiment, “Collisions Into Dust Experiment” (COLLIDE), involved a box of dust and a marble that “mimic impacts between objects in microgravity.”

All flights up to now have been unmanned, but Bezos has plans to put humans into space.

Bezos hopes to start testing manned flights next year with the goal of taking to passengers into space in 2018 if all goes well with these tests.