Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich / EPA
After several years, Jeff Bezos finally presents a competitor to SpaceX rockets, in orbit for the first time. You are “in search of perfection”.
Tem 98 metrosa height equivalent to a 30-story building, and it was under cloudy skies in Florida that the New Glenn rocket, from Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin, was launched in the early hours of Thursday.
The takeoff had been expected for several years, and is the result of the investment of billions of dollars by the millionaire, who competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The launch of the rocket had already been postponed this week due to the formation of ice on a propulsion line, recalls the
The objective was to place New Glenn into orbit, and the object, which reached an altitude of 19 thousand kilometers, successfully completed the objective: managed to reach medium Earth orbit.
The mission lasted six hours, and Elon Musk in X, “congratulations” to your rival in the space race for succeeding “on the first try”.
On the rocket was the Blue Ring, a platform designed by Bezos’ company to support and help satellites move in orbit. You can also refuel satellites and host dataand provides cutting-edge computing capacity.
A explains that although the inaugural flight was a success, Blue Origin’s attempt to landing the booster on a landing pad in the Atlantic Ocean failed. The company, however, had no expectations in this regard, and assured in advance that this achievement would only be a bonus.
We will learn a lot from today and we will try again in our next release in spring. Thank you to the entire Blue Team for this incredible milestone,” wrote the Blue Origin CEO, Dave Limpin a statement.
But this rocket, which was being designed for almost a decade, becomes the third reusable rocket in the orbital space sector. Before him, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have already done this.
He notes that Bezos’ company has existed for two years longer than SpaceX, which was still ahead of the curve in this field. Why?
NYT experts explain that it may be due to the fact that Bezos had, at the time of founding his company, a more stable fortune than Musk’s, and therefore Blue Origin took a slower and steady approach than SpaceX, which had to pivot with the limited investment it had.
Now, the millionaire seems focused on his space project. “Maybe what we were doing was seeking perfection in many things“, in an interview last year. It may not have reached it yet, but it came to make Musk’s reign in the space race tremble. What’s next?
