Blue Origin Tests Capsule Escape System During Flight.
After a handful of short holds, the company’s New Shepard rocket lifted off for the fifth time from the Texas desert proving grounds, heading up into space. Like the previous four test flights, this was to be a short suborbital hop: Straight up, pass the 100 kilometer line that demarcates the arbitrary but agreed-upon border of space, then back down to land vertically again.
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But even for this rocket, this was no ordinary flight.
As I wrote earlier in September, this test flight had pretty good odds of being the last time we’d see this five-time booster intact. The reason was that the crew capsule’s emergency abort rocket was to be tested in flight. Roughly 45 seconds in, when New Shepard was undergoing maximum pressure as it rammed through Earth’s atmosphere, the powerful rocket motors along the bottom of the crew capsule would ignite, blasting it away from the booster underneath. This abort system is set up in case there’s a problem during the flight, and the crew needs to get away fast.
More: Blue Origin tests capsule escape system during flight.