“Touchdown” means something different to rocket scientists and to football fans, but the cheering, hugs and high fives are the same – as revealed today in a Blue Origin video.
The video shows how the Nov. 23 landing of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft played out, as seen from four perspectives. Two views showed how the autonomous landing went down at the company’s test range in West Texas. The other two views showed the reaction of Blue Origin employees who gathered at the company’s headquarters in Kent, Wash.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Blue Origin as well as the better-known Amazon online commerce venture, touted the video in the third tweet he’s ever posted:
What 400 very happy rocket scientists look like. https://t.co/FwrZHuB8RD
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 3, 2015
The whooping and hollering is similar to what’s been seen in the control room after, say, a Mars landing or SpaceX launch.
Speaking of SpaceX, that company’s rocket scientists are hoping to have something to celebrate later this month. A Falcon 9 rocket is due to put a cluster of telecommunication satellites into orbit for Orbcomm, marking SpaceX’s return to flight nearly six months after a Falcon launch failure.
Over the past year, SpaceX has made two nearly successful attempts to land the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster on a seagoing platform after launch. This time, there are rumblings that SpaceX would love to try having the booster fly itself back to “Landing Complex 1” at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It’s not clear whether the permission to do so will come in time for this month’s launch – but however the schedule turns out, let’s hope there’ll be lots of touchdowns and cheers ahead.
For land return, word is: "Some approvals still needed. Stay tuned." Launch date probably approved, circa 15th. https://t.co/wDb4zjqPqM
— Charles A. Lurio (@TheLurioReport) December 2, 2015