Just about one month ago, we posted here the announcements of a successful vertical recovery/landing of a space rocket by SpaceX. See it here:
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=8927.msg120538#msg120538
Today, there is a report of even a 2nd successful vertical recovery by another space company, Blue Origin, a firm created by Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin made their 1st successful vertical landing in November 2015, and today are announcing another. So, now that vertical rocket landings are being done successfully by two companies, vertical rocket landings maybe are in the beginning stages of making a paradigm change for how we can plan for landings, here and on other worlds......!
Blue Origin January 22, 2016
LAUNCH. LAND. REPEAT.
The very same New Shepard booster that flew above the Karman line and then landed vertically at its launch site last November has now flown and landed again, demonstrating reuse. This time, New Shepard reached an apogee of 333,582 feet (101.7 kilometers) before both capsule and booster gently returned to Earth for recovery and reuse.
Data from the November mission matched our preflight predictions closely, which made preparations for today's re-flight relatively straightforward. The team replaced the crew capsule parachutes, replaced the pyro igniters, conducted functional and avionics checkouts, and made several software improvements, including a noteworthy one. Rather than the vehicle translating to land at the exact center of the pad, it now initially targets the center, but then sets down at a position of convenience on the pad, prioritizing vehicle attitude ahead of precise lateral positioning. It's like a pilot lining up a plane with the centerline of the runway. If the plane is a few feet off center as you get close, you don't swerve at the last minute to ensure hitting the exact mid-point. You just land a few feet left or right of the centerline. Our Monte Carlo sims of New Shepard landings show this new strategy increases margins, improving the vehicle's ability to reject disturbances created by low-altitude winds.
Though wings and parachutes have their adherents and their advantages, I'm a huge fan of rocket-powered vertical landing. Why? Because — to achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space — we will need to build very large rocket boosters. And the vertical landing architecture scales extraordinarily well. When you do a vertical landing, you're solving the classic inverted pendulum problem, and the inverted pendulum problem gets a bit easier as the pendulum gets a bit bigger. Try balancing a pencil on the tip of your finger. Now try it with a broomstick. The broomstick is simpler because its greater moment of inertia makes it easier to balance. We solved the inverted pendulum problem on New Shepard with an engine that dynamically gimbals to balance the vehicle as it descends. And since New Shepard is the smallest booster we will ever build, this carefully choreographed dance atop our plume will just get easier from here. We're already more than three years into development of our first orbital vehicle. Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family, it's still many times larger than New Shepard. I hope to share details about this first orbital vehicle this year.
Also this year, we'll start full-engine testing of the BE-4 and launch and land our New Shepard rocket – again and again. If you want to stay up to date with all the interesting work that our team is doing, sign up for email updates at www.blueorigin.com/interested.
Gradatim Ferociter!
Jeff Bezos
The Blue Origin November 2015 launch and recovery video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pillaOxGCo
The Blue Origin video of the January 22, 2016 launch and recovery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74tyedGkoUc
It looks like the technology got cheap and advanced enough to allow for these kind of things to be done by private companies, which is great news. :)
Quote from: ArMaP on January 23, 2016, 06:27:24 PM
It looks like the technology got cheap and advanced enough to allow for these kind of things to be done by private companies, which is great news. :)
o...r they were finally allowed to do so. :o
Quote from: Dyna on January 23, 2016, 06:35:06 PM
o...r they were finally allowed to do so. :o
Allowed by whom?
(I think the use of "whom" is correct in this case, but I'm never sure about it. :))
I suppose "rocket reusability" maybe is new, along with the vertical landing, but the Space Shuttles are/were certainly also considered as being "reusable spacecraft" - a total of 135 missions were executed with the 5 mission capable shuttle craft that were built. I would say that is a now historical true showing of spacecraft reusability!! :)
Hopefully these new/reusable vertical landers will be able to take us where no man (that we are aware of) has gone before, and bring him/them back!! :)