Blue origin rocket landing7/29/2023 ![]() The terrain that the rocket vehicle may land in is also unpredictable and not known a priori. Mitigations can either be lightweight structures that can be placed on the landing surface or structures, strategies placed on the rocket, nozzle technologies that address the plume impaction, smart landing structures, and landing software.ĭESCRIPTION: Although vertically landing a rocket on an improved, flat surface has been achieved by multiple launch vehicle companies (Masten Space, SpaceX, Blue Origin), landing a rocket vehicle on an irregular, unimproved surface has a number of challenges including, but not limited to the rocket sinking in the surface, the plume kicking up dust and creating an observable event, and the uneven footing causing the rocket to fall over. This topic seeks to develop strategies that can be used to enable landing on these surfaces as well as mitigations that can be potentially implemented to enable this capability. However, little work has been conducted in landing a rocket on flat, improved surfaces, let alone these types of surfaces. This could be anything from a parking lot to an irregular farm field. OBJECTIVE: Both Tactically Responsive Space Access as well as Rocket Cargo have the need to lift-off from and/or land on a non-improved, irregular surface. TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Space Platform Air Platform TECH FOCUS AREAS: Autonomy General Warfighting Requirements (GWR) Mike Wall is the author of " Out There " (Grand Central Publishing, 2018 illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Space is still hard, and getting there and back remains something to celebrate. Let's cheer a little more enthusiastically when a rocket makes it to space and a mission - even one that "only" goes suborbital - ends successfully. ![]() (The company uses different New Shepard vehicles to launch uncrewed and tourist flights, it's important to note.)īut we can take one lesson from today's events. It's too soon to say how today's New Shepard anomaly will affect Blue Origin and space tourism in general going forward such questions must wait until Blue Origin figures out what went wrong and how to fix it. ![]() Going orbital requires much higher energies, and is therefore significantly more difficult, than topping out at suborbital altitudes. To be clear: These are not one-to-one comparisons with today's New Shepard incident. The biggest launch failures (and recoveries) of 2021 Blue Origin's 1st New Shepard passenger launch with Jeff Bezos And the lengthy list of 2021 mishaps includes launch failures by Rocket Lab's Electron booster and India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, as well as Russia's Kosmos 2551 spy satellite, which failed to adjust its orbit properly after a smooth liftoff. One of Astra's rockets failed in June, for example, resulting in the loss of two hurricane-studying NASA cubesats. This is not to pick on the shuttle program we could cite many other incidents to make the same point. The other - Columbia, in February 2003 - took place when the orbiter was coming home to Earth. One of those tragedies - the Challenger explosion, in January 1986 - occurred during launch. It suffered catastrophic failures during two of its 135 missions, killing 14 astronauts. Think of NASA's iconic space shuttle program. The spacecraft side of things is no picnic, either the space environment is harsh, and vehicles coming back to Earth experience extremes of velocity and temperature that can expose the slightest design or manufacturing flaw, sometimes to tragic effect. Rockets are complex machines riding controlled explosions high into the sky, and the slightest problem can knock "controlled" out of that equation. But the possibility of failure should always be in the back of our minds. In-flight failures are always startling, given the dramatic visuals that accompany them and the investment of time and money that each one incinerates.
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