The aerospace company Jeff Bezos has developed aggressive deadlines for the first flight with a crew that will fly into the suborbital space on a New Shepard rocket.
The Blue Origin spacecraft, founded by Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com), plans to launch its first flight with the crew into the suborbital space.
“We will try to implement the first human launches over the next year. This is the main goal at the moment, "- said Erica Wagner, business development manager at Blue Origin at the New Space Era conference on Saturday (March 11) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In November 2015, Blue Origin went down in history, landing the New Shepard rocket after a test flight into the suborbital space. This was the first time that a company or country had successfully completed a vertical take-off and landing with a reusable rocket.
“We are very proud of this breakthrough,” Wagner said.
Over the next year, Blue Origin launched and landed four times on the same rocket, demonstrating reusable technology. Bezos believes that this could revolutionize space flight, significantly reducing costs. Ilon Mask, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, was enthusiastic about reusability. SpaceX landed the first stage of eight different Falcon 9 rockets during orbital flights and said they plan to re-launch another one next month.
SpaceX and Blue Origin are also developing large-capacity rockets. Both companies said they are aiming to launch lunar missions in the next few years.
But if Blue Origin is under pressure, it does not show it. Wagner noted that the company's motto is the Latin expression gradatim ferociter (“step by step, passionately”).
The first launcher of the company consisted of four Rolls Royce jet engines tied to a launch body. All this was done to create software. Blue Origin then built a small rocket engines, and then moved to a larger one. The company now has a suborbital New Shepard, and engineers are working on a heavy loading model, the New Glenn, which is due to fly out for the first time by 2020.
The same strategy will be used for flights with passengers that will begin on board the New Shepard. (Bezos said that Blue Origin also intend to deliver people into orbital space).
“We really go to the next level and thoroughly test the rocket before we invite the first person aboard,” Wagner said. - “Safety is the main criterion”.
“We do not refer to qualifications only the number of flights,” - said Wagner in the audience. “We believe in performance.” We really believe that security depends on how well you understand the system. ”
She said that Blue Origin is studying the NASA space flight standards and the human factor, which includes health requirements.
“As soon as we are ready, we will have people on board,” she said. - "But this still needs to come."
