The company stands out in another way—it’s the only one to recover and reuse its rockets. Landings of its Falcon 9 first stages have gone from being novelties, often with explosive failures, to a routine aspect of most missions. Last May, SpaceX introduced its latest version of the Falcon 9, called the Block 5, the first stage of which is designed to be flown 10 or more times.
Although the Falcon 9 will be SpaceX’s workhorse for years to come, the company added a new vehicle to its stable three months before introducing the Block 5. Last February, the company launched the first Falcon Heavy, which includes three Falcon 9 first stages lined up in a row. The Falcon Heavy is capable of placing more than 60 metric tons into low Earth orbit, far more than any existing launch vehicle can accomplish.
Blue Origin, by contrast, has yet to launch anything at all into orbit. But the company has similarly big ambitions. It’s working on a rocket it calls New Glenn (named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth), which is scheduled to launch for the first time in 2021. The two-stage rocket will be able to place 45 metric tons into low Earth orbit, with its first stage designed to land on a ship at sea and be reused up to 25 times.
“We’re in build mode right now,” said Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin, during a space policy workshop in Washington, D.C., this past October. The company has completed a new 70,000-square-meter (750,000-square-foot) factory for constructing the rocket just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, and it’s currently building a testing and refurbishment facility nearby, which is expected to be completed in early 2019. Blue Origin is also modifying a dormant launchpad at nearby Cape Canaveral for its operations and has signed up several commercial customers for New Glenn.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket [top] will be capable of lifting 45 metric tons into low Earth orbit, while SpaceX’s Starship [bottom], if refueled in space, will be capable of ferrying 100 metric tons to the surface of Mars.
As they say, read it all.
Competition and a profit motive lead to quality despite failures along the way.
ReplyDeleteIf Bezos's group can;t be more accurate than Bezos's Washington Post delivery person for his newspaper, their going to end up missing all their landings.
ReplyDeleteyou must have a hell of a prolific parakeet to need that much bird cage liner to have a delivered subscription to the WaPo.
Deleteelon's falcon heavy first targeted landing after blue origin is finished building the facility is probably going to be the roof of blue origins new building if they look like viable competition.