Watch: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Rocket, Capsule Have Successful Test Launch

While SpaceX has suffered a few setbacks and delays this week for the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, competitor Blue Origin is making strides.

Blue Origin, owned and founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, successfully launched its New Shepard rocket from its launch site in west Texas. The flight was unmanned save for a test-flight dummy with sensors inside of the capsule. The New Shepard system is a fully reusable system that operates with a vertical launch and landing to propel the Blue Origin capsule into space.

The company cleared the airspace around the launch facility in Texas for four days this week to ensure safety during the launch. The filing with the Federal Aviation Administration shows that the company needed clear airspace around the Van Horn, Texas, facility to, “provide a safe environment for rocket launch and recovery pursuant to 14 crc section 91.” The closed area covered a 17 nautical mile radius and an altitude “from the surface up to Unlimited,” the filing said.

Blue Origin needed that much space cleared because the booster and capsule launched more than 250,000 feet into the air, a voiceover on a video of the launch says. Bezos tweeted a video of the launch and said, “#NewShepard had a successful first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0 today. Complete with windows and our instrumented test dummy. He had a great ride. @BlueOrigin.”

The rocket booster successfully landed upright on the launchpad at 6.75 miles per hour and the capsule came down with parachutes, settling on land at a speed of just one mile per hour. “New Shepard flew again for the seventh time today from Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site. Known as Mission 7 (M7), the mission featured the next-generation booster and the first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0,” said a statement from Blue Origin.

The two vehicles launch vertically for 2.5 minutes before the engine cuts off and they separate sending the capsule on its way into space. The booster then free falls for a few minutes before its automated systems kick in and it conducts a controlled rocket-power landing.

The pressurized capsule features the largest windows to ever be used in space flight and seats for six passengers. The windows are 2.4 feet wide and 3.6 feet tall, great for viewing space. Blue Origin already has its first customers signed up to head to space sometime in 2018 in a Blue Origin capsule atop a Blue Origin rocket.

Bezos said in April that the journey would take less than 10 minutes. The entire process from boarding, the flight to space, and then re-entry and landing would take less than an hour.