The Blue Origin rocket, a project of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, made history two weeks ago when it launched and landed—again. That makes it the first reusable rocket in known history. Now the company released a video showing the landing from a 1st person perspective, as captured by a camera on board the vehicle.
“The very same New Shepard booster that flew above the Karman line and then landed vertically at its launch site last November has now flown and landed again, demonstrating reuse,” Bezos wrote in a post on Blue Origin website on Jan. 22. “This time, New Shepard reached an apogee of 333,582 feet (101.7 kilometers) before both capsule and booster gently returned to Earth for recovery and reuse.”
The landmark landing is also important because it overcame greater difficulty than what will be required of its future versions. The hard part is balancing the rocket for landing and since it worked for a rocket this small, it should be easier for larger ones as they’d have “greater moment of inertia,” Bezos explains in the post. “Try balancing a pencil on the tip of your finger. Now try it with a broomstick.”
Bezos plans to launch and land the rocket again and again. He also plans to unveil the first Blue Origin orbital spacecraft this year.