New Shepard flew today! (links)
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Hello All,
Below I've attached a post-landing photograph of Blue Origin's new, large window-equipped New Shepard capsule, and: Today in west Texas (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDH...eature=youtu.be ), Blue Origin flew their new-generation New Shepard vehicle into space and back (for the seventh time overall, although the first time for this particular vehicle). Both the booster and the capsule made separate, successful landings (the company's brief announcement, from www.blueorigin.com [also see: http://www.google.com/search?ei=JLg...0.HNf1 skZA8a0 ], is copied below): From: Blue Origin Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2017 8:06 PM To: blackshire@alaska.net Subject: Crew Capsule 2.0 First Flight New Shepard flew again for the seventh time today from Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site. Known as Mission 7 (M7), the mission featured the next-generation booster and the first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0. Watch the mission highlights here [see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDH...eature=youtu.be ]. -Gradatim Ferociter! Crew Capsule 2.0 features large windows, measuring 2.4 feet wide, 3.6 feet tall. If you were forwarded this e-mail, you can receive it directly by signing up for updates at blueorigin.com/interested |
I didn't see any comment wrt how high this flight went...
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There was one mention in the video that capsule separation occurred at 250k feet or more. Didn't say if acceleration was enough to carry it above Karman line (330k) but I doubt it. |
They are not fixated on the Karman line, but the repeatability and the experience. Once the experience is achieved numerous times they will update to orbital flights, then beyond.
They talk little and simply do more. Just Jerry |
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New Shepard's short, stubby booster presents (as Jeff Bezos has said) a "worst-case scenario" as far as flight control during powered ascent--and *especially* during powered descent and landing--are concerned. Perfecting this with New Shepard puts them in an excellent position with regard to New Glenn (its booster will encounter greater re-entry heating than New Shepard's, but as SpaceX's Falcon 9 has shown, high-velocity tail-first first stage re-entries and "pinpoint" powered landings are entirely practical). |
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I had occasion to get an informal tour of their Kent, WA facility recently as I was there to meet someone to take some old model rocket stuff off his hands. The fact that - engineer to engineer - we found ourselves talking about maintenance access in the booster goes right to this point. As a retired airliner guy for whom getting to things that need fixing or replacing quickly and easily was an important consideration (on the Next Gen 737s and later variants including the new MAX in particular) this resonated strongly. One of the old model items I came home with was a nearly flightworthy Centuri Quasar which still had a spent C6-5 with a mid 1971 date code on it in the motor mount. That one WILL fly again soon. |
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Too bad car and truck manufacturers haven't learned that lesson... nowdays they make things as DIFFICULT to repair as possible... just to increase the amount they can charge at the dealer shops... When Ford is building pickups that you have to REMOVE THE CAB to do engine service, it's gotten to the point of being ridiculous... Later! OL J R :) |
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Fortunately we have three dimensional tools which we've used since the 777 program and much more recently some kind of VR-like tools we used on the 737 MAX which help with this. But even today sometimes a physical mockup is of amazing value in figuring out if folks can reach places either to put the airplane together in the first place or to fix it later.....
(I guess even though I've been retired for over a year I still feel like saying "we"....for some portions of the 777 and later the 737 Next Gen part of my particular responsibility was getting folks together each week and "flying thru" the 3D and helping them sort out spatial stuff including maintenance access.) |
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