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Blue Origin has reused their Shepard rocket 4(?) times. Their rockect has not gone into deep space.
by peter303 10y ago
Blue Origin has reused their Shepard rocket 4(?) times.
Their rockect has not gone into deep space.
- frisco 10y ago> Their rocket has not gone into deep space Nor has Falcon 9. It would be more correct to say that no Blue Origin rocket has been to very high energies though, much less returned from them.
- jessriedel 10y agoThese are not really comparable. The Shepard rocket is sub-orbital and achieves something like 1/5 or less of the same speed as the Falcon 9.
- Retric 10y agoIt's also not carrying a giant payload and 2nd stage.
- sytse 10y agoIt is not space vs. deep space. It is space vs. orbit. Orbit means having the speed to not fall back to earth.
- parcec 10y agoTo be fair, Falcon 9 stage 1 has never been to orbit either.
- Retric 10y agoStage I is capable of reaching orbit with a small payload, adding stage 2 dramatically increases how much mass you get to orbit. However, stage I is expencive enough they are not going to waste one without an upper stage.
- xorxornop 10y agoTrue enough, but it's going an awful lot faster since it's aimed for orbital trajectory to inject the 2nd stage. So, it has tremendous horizontal velocity. Shepard, by comparison, just goes straight up (vertical only), so it's total velocity is far lower. Falcon is in a totally different class of difficulty and complexity. I mean, the grid fins caught on fire and began to melt. That gives you a good idea of what sort of forces are involved in the descent.