A nicely made video compilation of SpaceX Falcon 9 test flights that led to the successful landings of the first stage booster during orbital payload launches:
Category Archives: Space industry
Videos: Blue Origin flies a suborbital rocket to space and then lands it safely
On Monday the company Blue Origin, owned by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, flew an un-crewed New Shepard reusable rocket to 105 kilometers (62.5 miles) altitude. The system returned to the ground to be prepared for another flight in a few weeks. Here is a video of the flight, which took place at Blue’s facility in West Texas:
The booster rocket and the crew capsule of the New Shepard separate at high altitude and come down separately. The booster lands via the power of its liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine while the crew capsule comes down via parachutes.
There was no camera view of the separation so they inserted an animation of it into the video. Here is a schematic of the phases of the flight:
![trajectory_white[1]](https://i0.wp.com/hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/trajectory_white1-1024x498.jpg?resize=520%2C253)
Blue plans an intensive test program for the New Shepard that will lead to commercial flights for science and technology R&D flights by next summer. Passenger space tourism flights will start in a couple of years.
Jeff Bezos comments on the project in this video:
The New Shepard is just for suborbital (100 km altitude) but it will be very similar to the upper stage of Blue’s two stage orbital rocket that is expected to fly in about 4 years from now.
![orbital-spaceflight[1]](https://i0.wp.com/hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/orbital-spaceflight1.jpg?resize=488%2C444)
Artist’s rendition of Blue Origin’s two stage orbital rocket design.
Video: Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX + Dirk Ahlborn of Hyperloop Transportation Tech
Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, gave a keynote talk at last week’s South Summit entrepreneurial business event in Madrid, Spain. She then participated in a panel discussion titled, Future of connectivity: What can we expect from Space Exploration 6.0.
Her talk starts at about 1hr 31min 15sec into this video. The panel begins at around 1hr 45min
Then Dirk Ahlborn of JumpStartFund and CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc talked about the Hyperloop concept (see many Hyperloop posts here) and how his “crowdstormed” organization will start building a full-scale prototype system in Central California next year. His talk starts at 2hrs 38min 17sec into the video.
He then participated in a panel discussion titled Trains, Planes, and Drone-o-mobiles-Future of Transportation, starting at around 3hr 0min 35sec.
Videos: Recent tests of NewSpace rockets
* SpaceX did a test of the Dragon crew module pad abort last Monday:
* Blue Origin flew the New Shepard suborbital vehicle to the edge of space last week:
* Back in April SpaceX attempted to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 onto a floating platform in the Atlantic. A balky valve disrupted the control just above the platform, causing it to touchdown at a tilt. They will try again to land the first stage for a flight in June and in other launches later in the year.
Charles Pooley, Microlauncher proponent – RIP
Charles Pooley has passed away. He was well known in the NewSpace rocket world for his fervent advocacy of Microlaunchers. These would be relatively small rockets for putting very small payloads into orbit. He believe they would provide
“… a way to make launches become
less expensive
smaller
more numerous
more available by a factor of thousands…”
Here is a note distributed by David Livingston, host of The Space Show:
May 4, 2015: The Space Show Has Lost A Good Friend
Dear Listeners and Friends: I am very sorry to announce that we lost a very good Space Show friend and a good personal friend of mine, Charles Pooley. Charles passed away before he could make it to the Space Access Society conference this past weekend. I have no further details at this time. All Space Show programs this week will be in his memory. Next Tuesday, May 12 on Open Lines, we will reserve time for those of you who want to remember Charles by calling or emailing us. Charles will be missed on The Space Show and I for one will miss him very much as a friend.
Sincerely,
Dr. David Livingston, Host
A sampling of comments:
- GeorgeWilliamHerbert on Twitter:
- Old acquaintance and space enthusiast Charles Pooley aka @Microlaunchers passed away recently; we are sad to see him go. He kept pushing.
- Jason Carr on Twitter:
- Sad news. I interviewed Charles back in 2012 for my blog. He was truly a visionary and will be missed.
- Paul Breed on Twitter:
- RIP Charles Pooley. He was a friend and talented engineer that contributed in a big way to my llc efforts. I know no additional details.
- Ben Brockert on Twitter:
- Got word that Charles Pooley died. He was an interesting and persistent character with big ideas for small space launch.
- Jonathan A. Goff on Twitter:
- He helped me with the electronics for an experiment for my Master’s Thesis (had to finish it while at Masten). He’ll be missed.
![me27_400x400[1]](https://i0.wp.com/hobbyspace.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/me27_400x4001.jpg)