Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launches unmanned spaceship
Apr 30, 2015, 8:59 AM | Updated: 9:25 am
(Youtube screengrab)
(Youtube screengrab)
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo’s space company, Blue Origin, launched its first unmanned test flight on Wednesday.
The BE-3 engine took the New Shepard space capsule up to a speed of over Mach 3, according to Bezo’s blog.
The capsule reached 307,000 feet — about 20,000 feet shy of what’s considered the boundary of space — and then floated safely back to Earth’s surface with the help of two parachutes.
“Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return,” Bezos wrote.
The test flight wasn’t perfect. Bezos said one of the goals is reusability and they weren’t able to recover the propulsion module. But another planned test flight is already in the works.
It was only three weeks ago that Blue Origin announced plans for a test flight sometime this year.
