Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, flew their New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket yesterday. The goal was to test the abort system for the crew capsule. At about 45 seconds after liftoff, the crew capsule separated and flew off from the booster. It was expected that the booster would be damaged and blown off course by the rocket plume of the crew capsule but in fact it continued to fly normally and came back down for a safe landing.

New Shepard In-flight Escape Test

On October 5, 2016, New Shepard performed an in-flight test of the capsule’s full-envelope escape system, designed to quickly propel the crew capsule to safety if a problem is detected with the booster. At T+0:45 and 16,053 feet (4,893 meters), the capsule separated and the escape motor fired, pushing the capsule safely away from the booster. Reaching an apogee of 23,269 feet (7,092 meters), the capsule then descended under parachutes to a gentle landing on the desert floor. After the capsule escape, the booster continued its ascent, reaching an apogee of 307,458 feet (93,713 meters). At T+7:29, the booster executed a controlled, vertical landing back at the West Texas Launch Site, completing its fifth and final mission.

[ Update: Here is a slow motion view of the separation of the crew capsule

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This was the fifth flight of the booster and crew capsule, both of which will now go to a museum. Test flights will continue with new improved boosters and crew capsules as they move towards carrying people for the first time next year. Commercial flights with paying customers should start in 2018. Already, the vehicle has been carrying science experiments and engineering R&D payloads commercially.

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Here is the complete webcast with the liftoff starting at  1:05:52. It shows more of the flight of the booster and crew capsule than the above video: