Blue Origin's rocket reuse achievement marred by upper stage failure

staplung•about 2 hours ago

The failure of the upper stage is a bummer. If it triggers a months-long review, that will almost certainly bump back the schedule for the prototype Blue Moon lander launch.

WalterBright•about 2 hours ago

Once Elon showed how to do it, and how cost-efficient it was, a rocket company that doesn't do it is not viable.

testing22321•about 2 hours ago

Spacex first landed an orbital booster just over 10 years ago and have now landed 600 times.

The entire rest of the world combined has done it twice.

For a long time people would scoff when it was said they had a 10 year lead, and that others would catch up quickly. Proof meets pudding.

gamblor956•about 2 hours ago

FTA: "SpaceX suffered upper stage failures on three test flights of the massive Starship rocket last year. "

SpaceX has also had numerous failures with the larger generation of second stages and currently doesn't have a lead there. Nobody does.

decimalenough•43 minutes ago

Nobody else has anything remotely like Starship. If they pull it off, and it's looking like they will, they will extend their dominance for another decade if not more.

Yes, Starship development has been slow and occasionally explodey, but they've successfully demonstrated all the fundamentals and it's "just" iteration from here. (They haven't gone into full orbit, but that's by choice, not lack of capability.)

boznz•about 1 hour ago

It's a hard problem, and both SpaceX and Blue Origin will probably have failures in the future too, I am encouraged that they both see failure as a way to do better and looking forward to both of them eventually succeeding. It's a good time to be a space nerd.

dwd•42 minutes ago

What I was not aware of is how many satellites Amazon already has in LEO for it's own Internet service.

They've been flying under the radar there it would seen.

cmiles8•22 minutes ago

I will be good to have competition for space Internet. It’s unclear though if the market will really support two players. Satellite radio and data quickly ended up consolidating down to one.

Amazon is trying to become more vertically integrated but they seem at a structural disadvantage here competing against SpaceX.

cmiles8•26 minutes ago

Space is hard.

Losing payloads hurts though, especially for a new platform.

eagerpace•about 2 hours ago

I know insurance for a launch is typical, but seems really tough to do that for this still “rather experimental” launch. I got to imagine it has costs something like 50% on a project like this.

cryptoz•about 4 hours ago

Video of the booster landing: https://xcancel.com/JeffBezos/status/2045874068763632017

Mistletoe•32 minutes ago

Stupid question I know, but are there people on that boat?

XorNot•30 minutes ago

It's a drone boat, so no.

Blue Origin's rocket reuse achievement marred by upper stage failure

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